


Everything Before Us

by ashesandhoney



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Canon Divergence, F/M, Heronstairs Friendship, POV Jem Carstairs, Plotted, Slow Burn, god I have no tags for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 72
Words: 107,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3551240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a little girl with an incredible power who was raised by a man who believed he had good reason to hate the Shadowhunters. She learned her magic, she learned her lessons, she was taught everything that she needed to fear and despise and she believed it too. Until the day she met one. </p><p>James Carstairs found a girl standing in the Institute in the middle of the night. She was an enemy and a stranger and she turned into a cat before she ran away. She was the worst possible girl to fall in love with. That didn’t stop him. </p><p>This story is a TID AU where the Gray family never escaped England to resettle in America. Rather than being found by the Magister at 16, Tessa is taken in and raised by Mortmain from the age of 6. It is told entirely from Jem’s point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enemy Inside the Gates

It was usually Will who roamed the halls in the dead of night but this evening it was him. Jem’s joints had bothered him that day and he’d slept through the afternoon. Now it was well past midnight and he was wide awake so he took up Will’s position as the ghost of the manor, drifting through the halls without a purpose. He was considering going back to his room to pull out his violin when he heard the sound of footsteps.

“Will?” he called out. The door to the spoils room was open which was rare itself. The only function of the ‘historically relevant collection’ that Jem had ever seen was for lessons with the tutor. Will hated the space and though it wasn’t as gruesome as the collections in other Institutes, it wasn’t Jem favourite place either.He stepped into the doorway and there she was.

A girl.

She wore men’s clothing that fit like it had been tailored to her but she was definitely a girl. She couldn’t have been much more than 16. In the witchlight, her gray eyes were wide and her heavy braided coil of hair shone. Her eyebrows drew together in the faintest hint of confusion. Not alarm, not yet, maybe she thought he truly was a ghost with his strange colouring.

She stood in the center of the hallway, amid the dark wood and glass cases. Everything was ordered and cataloged and there were little plaques on each door to explain the contents. Someone, Jem didn’t know who, had taken a tour around the British Museum and brought the systems there back. They had turned the spoils room into a sort of natural history gallery of Downworld.

“You’re not Will. How did you get in here?” he asked her. Only a Shadowhunter could open the door of the Institute and with that thought he relaxed and smiled at her. She wore a long jacket and gloves so he couldn’t see her runes but she must have come to the Institute for help and not rung the bell.

“Are you in danger? I can wake the Branwells, we can help or we can simply find you a room,” he said stepping over to her. Her confusion deepened.

“You are Nephilim,” she said, an educated British accent, he wondered which family she was from.

He held up his hand with the voyance rune and smiled again. Most people he spoke to knew the story, he wasn’t used to having it be a surprise, “I am, my colouring is a little unusual but I am a Shadowhunter just as you are.”

Comprehension dawned in her eyes, “You think I am Nephilim,” she said.

“Aren’t you?” he had gotten closer to her. What was she if she wasn’t Nephilim? How had she gotten in? Perhaps she was a ghost. They rarely appeared in Institutes but it wasn’t impossible. She looked solid enough but perhaps she was just a strong spirit.

“No,” she said in that soft musical voice. There wasn’t any hostility in it but Jem found himself drawing back and planning. She set him on edge. He had his cane if it came to a fight. He looked her over, she could be armed but not with long range weapons and she didn’t stand like she was preparing for a fight.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I had been told that Nephilim keep the heads of warlocks on their walls,” she said. Jem didn’t bother to keep the little curl of disgust off his face. She wasn’t wrong. He had seen it himself but it was one of the more disgusting habits he’d ever encountered. She looked back at the case she stood in front of. It was armour belonging to a Faerie warrior and it didn’t hold her attention long.

“We don’t, not here,” he said and she looked at him with those serious, considering eyes. His anxiety was climbing. She looked so harmless and she spoke so calmly but she was an enemy inside the gates. Deep inside the gates. He needed to do something but until he knew what she was, he didn’t want to raise an alarm and find himself in a battle he couldn’t win. If he were honest, he didn’t want to hurt her unless there was no other option.

“Most Nephilim just look like men, like any men on the streets, save the brands on their skin,” she said. “Are you something different?”

“No,” he said and he glanced around the room as unobtrusively as he could to see if they were truly alone. A bell sounded in the depths of the Institute beyond them and they both looked up. She was still not truly afraid, just curious and maybe a little wary.

“I need to leave now,” she said.

“I don’t think I can let you do that,” he told her.

“Will you kill me?” she asked just as calmly as every other question. Jem’s stomach turned because she wasn’t just a girl, she couldn’t be just a girl but she looked like one and he wanted to promise her that he wouldn’t hurt her but he couldn’t let her leave. He couldn’t let something that had crept deep into the Institute in the middle of the night simply waltz back out.

“I don’t want to,” he said because it was true.

“I’m a warlock, you’ve killed others, I’m sure,” she said.

“I haven’t,” he told her which was also true. He had killed things. He had killed demons. He had killed a vampire once but he had never killed a warlock. He’d barely even met any. He wondered how old she was, what her mark was, what her name was.

“If you need asylum, we can help you, I promise, no matter what you are,” he said to her.

“But your father has, his father too, the Accords give it a veneer of civility but there is blood on your hands even if you didn’t spill it. You are one of them,” she said and she sounded sad. She looked so young standing there in that room like a child at lessons. He had stood there during lessons, right where she was now.

“Is that what this is about?” he asked, “Are you here to seek some revenge?”

“He calls it justice,” she said.

“Who?” Jem asked.

“The Magister,” she said. She spoke calmly and Jem was reminded again of a student, not because she was young but because it was a recitation. The words meant almost nothing to her. It was as though she said them because she had been told to, “You’ll learn his name. He has a plan. Tonight was only the beginning. As you slay others, so shall you be slain. Your angel cannot protect you against that which neither God nor the devil has made, an army born neither of Heaven nor Hell.”

He flicked the switch on the cane to release the blade though he didn’t draw it yet. He was expecting her to run. He was prepared for her to try and fight but instead she melted. She vanished into her clothing as though she had shrunk. He stared at the pile of clothing puddled on the floor. Even her hair pins were still there, scattered about. He stepped a little closer and the bundle moved. His stomach churned again in some instinctive disgust.

Then a cat shot out.

It shot out and it ran towards the door but he was a Shadowhunter and he was faster than a cat. He slammed it shut and the cat careened away from him and took off down the alleys of cabinets. It was black and orange, a calico patchwork with long sleek fur. He stared after it.

“What the hell kind of magic is this?” he said to the empty room. It wasn’t a glamour. It was a cat. She had changed form. She didn’t appear to change form, she had actually done it. It wasn’t like any kind of warlock magic he had ever heard of.

Jem crept towards the back of the room, looking for the animal that had been a girl. When he heard the door open he spun and ran for it. She must have doubled back and changed again but no, it was Will. He stood in the open door with his coat on and his black hair windblown from whatever escapade he had been on that night.

“Close the door,” Jem called.

“Someone left the front door of the Institute open and you’re concerned about this one?” Will asked standing in the open door and waving his hand at it like a tour guide. Jem had heard the ringing bell and he could hear footsteps now. The Institute was waking up.

“She’s still in here, close the door, William,” he said and Will did. He was about to make some sarcastic comment, Jem could see it on his face but at least he closed the damn door first.

“Who’s still in here?” Will asked.

“The girl who seems to have walked into the Institute without setting off a single alarm, was sent by the Magister who, it turns out, has a plan and is now a cat,” Jem said.

“Are you drunk?” Will asked.

“While that would make more sense, no I am not drunk. Are you?” Jem said trying to imagine how difficult it would be to manage a drunken Will on top of the girl.

“Not this evening. Is this girl naked?” Will asked with just the hint of a leer when he saw the pile of clothing.

“She’s a cat. That wasn’t a joke or a fancy metaphor from one of your novels. She turned into a cat and all her clothing fell off,” Jem said again letting the exasperation into his voice.

Will had raised the alarm when he’d found the Institute doors open. Charlotte and Henry and all the servants were awake and hurrying about while they chased the cat who used to be a girl around the room. She was fast and small and human smart. They must have looked ridiculous trying to drop jackets on her and catch her in a corner.

Charlotte found them in the room with the cat closed up in an empty cabinet. Will sat in front of the door and glowered. His hand had been nearly shredded by her claws he’d pushed his jacket up to draw an iratze on his arm, muttering the entire time. The cat had hissed but now settled in and sat on her haunches from inside the glass case.

“The pyxis has been stolen while we all slept and the two of you are chasing your new pet around this ridiculous museum?” Charlotte said when she saw them. She wore a night dress and robe and her hair hung in two long plaits. She was small and thin and the hair style just made her look more like a child.

“She’s a part of the team that stole it,” Jem said while Will exploded and said loudly, “The pyxis is gone? That’s impossible! Where was everyone?”

“She?” Charlotte asked ignoring Will’s outburst. Jem had to tell the story again. The cat had bright green eyes but they had that same calm as the girl’s gray ones had. The cat watched him more closely than she watched the others and he was reminded of her question about whether or not he would kill her. He wanted to reassure her but that was madness on a number of levels.

“So we’ve at least got a clue,” Charlotte said looking at the cat who twitched her tail but didn’t give any other evidence that she understood what was going on.

“We’ve got a hostile cat and a pile of clothing,” Will said, “Which I suppose might be a clue if you squinted hard enough.”

“I’m going to go call the Brothers, we’ll see if we can get her returned to her natural form,” Charlotte said, continuing to ignore Will’s editorial, “I suppose I must also call the Clave.”

“Well, this day is shaping up swimmingly and it isn’t even dawn yet,” Will said cheerfully and Jem kicked him in the ankle while he looked back at the cat who was still watching him with those too-intelligent eyes. 


	2. Girl in the Cell

The girl was a girl again but she was not a cooperative one. She sat on the bed in a cell in the Silent City and did not speak to anyone. Jem went to visit her out of curiosity more than anything else. They knew nothing but what she had said to him about armies born of neither heaven nor hell and the mysterious Magister. When he'd expressed interest, Charlotte had very nearly pushed him into the carriage to be brought to the Silent City.

The girl raised those calm gray eyes to him. She wore a plain white dress and her hair was braided but unwashed and had likely been combed with her fingers not a brush. She frowned at him and that cautious curiosity was a look he was starting to think of as hers. She did not look well. There were shadows under her eyes. The cell was small and plain with a narrow bed and a small chair and table. The remains of a meal sat on the table. Jem sat down on the chair and tried to decide what he would say to her.

"The Silent Brothers can tear the very thoughts from your head and yet they cannot do it to me," she said. She hadn't said a word to another person. He hadn't even given her a greeting.

"There are blocks in your mind," he said, "It can be done with magics to prevent you from sharing things that you know. It has happened before. Time can release the knots sometimes. There are also certain magics that might work. They're working on it."

"And is this where you tell me that it would easier if I simply told you?" she asked.

"It would be," he said.

"I cannot. I tried after the first session, I could not even say those answers to myself. I know his name. I've known his name my entire life and yet I cannot tell it to you. Whether I want to or not is inconsequential. I simply cannot," she said. She sounded angry for just a flash at the end there and Jem looked at her a little bit closer. The anger was the first emotion he'd really seen beyond hints of wariness. It made her seem more human.

"Will it hurt?" she asked in that soft voice once the anger had drained away again.

"When they try to remove the blocks?" he asked and she nodded, "Yes. It might. I've never had it done myself."

She accepted this, looking sad and lonely and just a little bit worried. Jem reached out and touched her hand. Her eyes snapped up and she pulled away. He took his hand back. She said nothing but her expression was more wide eyed and confused than it had been. She was trying to figure out what his plan was. He didn’t have one. He wasn't trying to manipulate her. He hadn't come into the cell with any plan at all let alone one that convoluted.

"Don't try to tell me of the Magister," he said, "Tell me of yourself."

She frowned at him again. She twisted the fabric of her dress between her fingers. Her nails were dirty but carefully rounded. The little details kept building up. She cared about her appearance though she did not preen. She was educated and knowledgeable but there was much more she had been told than she had ever experienced. She was a puzzle box of a girl. He wanted to understand her. In that moment he wanted to understand her far more than he wanted to know where the pyxis was or who the Magister was or why he wanted it.

"What's your name?" he prompted.

Her frown deepened and she said, "Anne," but there was something in the way she said that made Jem think it was a lie or at the very least not the full truth. He waited as the tiny expressions that he couldn't read chased each other across her face. She closed her eyes and said, "I don't remember, he calls me Anne. After his mother."

"How old are you?" he asked.

"16," she said, "But I am a warlock, I will live forever. I wonder what it will be like sometimes."

"I've never met a warlock who could truly shapeshift," he said pushing just a little.

"I am not a typical warlock," she stopped and the anger was back. Whatever she was about to say was trapped behind one of the blocks and it annoyed her. She smiled just a bit, "My mother wasn't human." She looked at him and he smiled when he understood what she was doing and he asked her what her mother was, one question at a time so she could nod or shake her head until they got to the answer.

Her mother was a Shadowhunter.

He stared at her. He had seen her turn into a cat. She could not be an Shadowhunter.

"I was created to be the ruin of the Nephilim and someday I will be the mother of a new race," she said and it was a recitation again, her face gone blank. She was calm and placid again. The humanity in her draining away. Jem reached out and touched her hand again and this time she did not pull away. She just watched him like he was a tourist from a far away land, behaving strangely, like she was too polite to tell him he was being unusual. She lapsed into near silence. His other questions were met with calm stubborn silence. When he finally gave up and turned to leave her head came up and she met his gaze.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"Whatever for?" he asked.

"For the truth and for coming to see me. I know this is not a visit. I know someone is likely waiting outside that door to write down anything I say in case it is relevant to your investigations. I know that but no one ever asks me about me," she said. "Thank you."


	3. Stories by the Fire

Jem returned to the Institute confused and uncomfortable. Her gratitude at the end of the conversation gnawed at him. Was she genuine? Was she manipulating him? Was she a dangerous enemy or a girl caught in someone else’s plot? He was irrationally protective. The Brothers would hurt her in the search for the truth and he wanted to keep her from that. She was an enemy but no matter how many times he repeated it he couldn’t quite believe it.

"Charlotte told us a story," Will said as soon as he saw him.

“Did she?” he asked. He had more patience for Will than most people but he wanted to go lie down and think. He did not want to have to stand with Will while Will rambled on at great length on whichever topic he found interesting.

“When Lightwood was here last night, stomping about and being all superior he said, “This has never happened before!” but it has. I didn’t remember it right away but Charlotte told us the story. There was a woman who came to the Institute when her father was still the Head. She must have been about 15 or so. The woman banged on the door and old Granville refused to let her in,” Will said.

“And she just opened the door. In an angry fit, she just pushed open the door. But she was a Shadowhunter, they just didn’t know it, I remember the story,” Jem said.

“What did she want help with?” Will asked.

Jem paused, he didn’t really remember the story well at all but then it clicked and Will’s excitement about it made sense as well, “Her children. Her husband had been killed and her children kidnapped.”

“She said she knew who did it but in the end there was nothing Granville nor anyone else could do. They labeled it a mundane matter and sent her away,” Will said.

“We need to find the whole story, the records, they’re probably still stored here,” Jem said thinking it through.

Will held up a sheaf of papers and shook them, looking pleased with himself. He’d already dug them up. He gestured grandly and said, “Come sit by the fire and I shall tell you the whole sordid tale!”

Jem rolled his eyes but followed Will into the drawing room and dropped into a chair by the fire. He was tired and it took him a moment to realize that Will had done it on purpose. He’d made it seem part of his theatricality rather than fussing over Jem’s health but the end result was the same. Jem smiled at him and he nodded but didn’t say anything. It was a day for silent kindnesses then.

Will told him the story, adding in little dramatic flourishes where he felt the story was lacking but truly it wasn’t as story that needed much embroidering. It was dramatic and horrific all on its own.

Richard Gray worked for a man named Axel Mortmain and they had been members of an organization known as the Pandemonium Club. Will claimed they still ran brothels and gambling dens in the city with one of those knowing winks that made Jem want to tell him that he knew how much he lied about his cavorting. The Club featured just enough of a taste of Downworld to keep mundanes interested. Richard’s wife, Elizabeth, had never much liked the organization and after the children had been born she had all but stopped going.

“This bit isn’t clear but she says that Mortmain and her husband brought a warlock to their home to test the children in some way. She was too distraught by it to explain what exactly had been done,” Will said looking through the papers for a better follow up.

After that her husband had been killed and their children taken. She had heard that the Nephilim were the police and the judges of Downworld and she’d come to the Institute to demand aid. When she’d been refused, she had pushed the door open and the magic of the place had allowed her to do it. A lost Nephilim child was rare but not unheard of but she was not a Clave member and she would not swear the loyalty oaths required to become one. She accused a mundane man of stealing her children and that was not something that the Clave concerned itself with. She was found dead two days after they sent her out and slammed the gates behind her.

“What were their names?” Jem asked.

“Richard and Elizabeth,” Will said.

“Yes, I got that. I meant the children, what were their names?” Jem said.

“Theresa and Nathaniel,” Will said a moment later after he finished flipping through the pages, “She called them Tessie and Nate in all the transcripts.”

“Tessie,” Jem said.

“Sounds like a name for a pet, fitting if she is the cat girl,” Will said.

“She said this afternoon that she didn’t remember her name and he called her Anne,” Jem said.

“She talked to you?” Will sounded baffled and Jem recounted what the girl had told him in the cell. He left out the thank you and his inexplicable fascination with her expressions but he told Will everything else. Will shrugged as though it were all very boring but Jem could see the little pieces being filed away. Will had a memory like a steel trap and would come up with an answer to a problem days later over dinner or while he was training or in the middle of reading some piece of poetry.

“What do you think, kidnapped Shadowhunter girl under a dark and mysterious enchantment? Perhaps she is like a werewolf but smaller and fluffier,” Will said, “Seems a waste of demonic magic to turn into a house cat but people less blessed than I use magic to make their hair shinier.”

“I don’t know what she is or what she wants,” Jem said.

“Well, it seems when she decides to tell someone it will be you,” Will said. Jem smiled just a little as he stared into the fire. 


	4. Strange Friends at the Door

A carriage rolled up to the gates of the Institute and Jem caught sight of it through the window in the music room without thinking much of it. He was attempting to distract himself from the girl who might be named Theresa by playing the most difficult pieces he knew. It was only serving to frustrate him as the violin screeched over and over on the bow position he couldn't master. He was playing an old favourite to try and calm himself when the bell rang.

He ignored it and flipped the sheet music over before fitting the violin back to his shoulder and closing his eyes. Hers were there - gray and serious and beautiful - and he banished the thought of going back to the Silent City to tell her that her name wasn't truly Anne. It wouldn't serve a purpose. That detail might be used in an interrogation. It shouldn't be given like a gift just because.... He stopped that thought because he didn't know why he wanted to go and tell her. Maybe he just wanted to see her. She was a mystery.

Jem had a weakness for befriending mysteries. As though called by the thought Will appeared in the door way. "Come and see this," he said. His face was lit with a hostile excitement the way it sometimes was before a fight. Jem traded the violin for his cane and hurried after Will without stopping to grab his jacket or to put the instrument away properly.

In the main entrance the massive doors were closed but Charlotte and Henry were standing behind them. Jessamine was no where to be seen but Jessamine was never to be seen in the company of Shadowhunters if she could avoid it. Sophie stood up the stairs, watching but apart from the others. Jem could hear what sounded like machinery grinding and looked to Henry to see if this was some new strange invention of his but Henry's eyes were on the doors. The grinding wasn't just mindless noise. There were words below it. It took him a moment to realize what was being said over and over in a course of mechanical voices.

"Return her to us."

"Tessie the kitty cat has some strange friends," Will said and Jem came to join him where he looked out a window. A ring of men were standing in the courtyard but there was something deeply wrong with them. They were too tall, too wide, too still. They wore workman's clothing that was nearly identical individual to individual. Their faces shone in the sun with reflected sunlight. Bronze and iron.

"They're machines," Jem said.

"Very strange friends. We should get her a ball of yarn and maybe a mouse to play with instead," Will said.

Charlotte squared herself up, brushed off her skirt and went up to the door. Jem and Will pulled themselves away from the window immediately to stand at her back. They weren't the most impressive show of force that the Nephilim were capable of but they were certainly better than nothing. Standing with Charlotte was something they did in defiance of anyone who suggested she might not be worthy of leading the Enclave. Jem was an addict and Will was widely considered a lunatic but they would follow Charlotte into hell if she required it.

"Return to us the Pyxis and we can discuss returning the girl," Charlotte said loudly to the course of automatons as she stepped out at the top of the steps. Henry stood at her shoulder and peered at them in curiosity. He was probably trying to divine how they functioned and wouldn't notice anything they said.

There was a change in them and a flat buzzing filled the courtyard for a moment before they repeated their message, "Return her to us. The Magister requires it. Return her or face the consequences."

"Your consequences do not intimidate the Nephilim. You will return what you have taken or face the justice of the Clave and the Law," Charlotte said.

The noise stopped.

The clicking, the whirring, the unnatural speech, it all stopped.

Jem's chest tightened though he couldn't say exactly why it set him on edge so much. Beside him, Will was just as tense. The ring of mechanical men, six of them in all, stood blank and silent, just hunks of metal in cheap clothing.

"Consequences," they ground out.

"Inside," Jem said at nearly the same moment that Will said, "Back away."

The one nearest to them exploded first. A blast that knocked Jem backwards. Will had his hand fisted into his shirt and hauled him away as the second blast went. Jem's ears rang so badly that he couldn't hear if the other four followed suit but the chaos he opened his eyes too made it look as though they had. He came back to himself, leaning against a wall inside the Institute with Sophie's worried eyes in front of him. She had big brown eyes and was kinder than most even to an addict like him. He tried to smile at her. There was blood in his eye and he tried to rub it away. He wasn't well coordinated.

"James," Will's voice pulled his attention. Jem looked up at him to see his arm hung at a strange angle as though it were broken. Sophie still sat in front of him but he was looking at Will now. The doors still hung open and debris was strewn across the marble floor between them. Henry stood, seemingly uninjured and Charlotte leaned on his arm. A piece of a metal arm lay palm up not too far from where Jem sat. He looked at it for a moment as though it had answers but weakness was climbing and he couldn't tell if it was the illness or an injury that pulled him down and out of consciousness.

 

 

Jem woke up with a cold cloth on his face the quiet hushed voices of a sickroom around him. It was a familiar sound. Far more familiar than he wanted it to be. Someone was very carefully dabbing at his face and it was soothing even if he hated being trapped in bed. It took him a few minutes of drifting in that haze before waking to remember what had happened. Being sick and abed was not so unusual. He had assumed it was a normal course of his illness but then the explosion and Will's broken arm and the whirring mechanical voices came back to him.

He pushed himself up to see Charlotte leaning over him and Will tossed over the nearest chair like a rag doll with an attitude problem. He smiled at them both. They were well and if Charlotte was with him then Henry must be as well. Charlotte fussed a little, adjusting blankets and his pillows and calling for Sophie to bring something for him to eat. Will didn't move but his eyes followed it all as it happened.

"Don't bring home any more pets, they cause problems," Will said to him once everyone else was out of the room.

"I didn't bring her home," Jem said, "Are you sure you didn't leave the door open? Maybe she slipped in behind you."

"I am not so careless," Will said waving his hand.

"Everyone is truly fine?" Jem asked.

"Yes," he said, "Charlotte's going to have an interesting scar on her leg but that's the worst of it. Speaking of your pet, she's been stubborn and recalcitrant and the Brothers want you to try and convince her to behave."

"They think I have that power?" Jem asked.

"She asked for you," Will said with a shrug. Jem's stomach turned with some sort of nervous emotion, "Then apparently turned into a boxer and tried to punch Brother Enoch in the face. Is it inappropriate to find that image hilarious?"

"She turned into a boxer?" Jem asked.

"The shapeshifting ability isn't limited to changing into house pets. She is not a were-kitten. It's similar to an Eidolon demon's true shapeshifting though they are quite sure she is warlock and warlocks can't do that. There's debates about whether or not she is truly a Shadowhunter or if she was lying to you. I heard someone suggest holding her down and drawing runes on her just to see how they take," Will said.

"And if they kill her?" Jem asked.

"At least she won't be trying to abuse Silent Brothers any more," Will said.

Jem didn’t argue with him but it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. 


	5. Visitors in the Silent City

Jem answered the summons the next day. He should have rested another day but the curiosity was eating at him. He told himself that was what it was. Will tagged along pretending he wasn’t concerned. In the same cell where he had found her the last time sat a vampire with dark hair and skin like porcelain. He stopped in the doorway and stared for a second before looking back at the Brother who had escorted the down. He was silent in his parchment robes but there was a faint sense of disapproval about him as though he were annoyed.

Jem looked back at the vampire in the dirty dress in time to see her face waver like a reflection in a pond before it settled back into the face of the girl he couldn't stop thinking about. It was unlike any magic he had ever seen before. She was the reason he had almost been blown to pieces but he gave her a little smile as her face became her own again. Will whistled behind him and her attention went to him. She had that faintly startled look that girls sometimes got around Will.

She was dirty and her hair hung loose around her today looking lank. For all that, she didn't look terrified or even particularly upset. She looked at the Silent Brother behind them with disdain not fear. The Brothers were unearthly and they set most people so firmly on edge that even Shadowhunter prisoners had been broken down and driven mad in the cells of the Silent City.

"How are you?" Jem asked. The girl's attention kept being drawn away by Will and the Brother behind but it always came back to rest on him. It made his heart rate change each time. Why did she make him so nervous?

"As well as can be expected," she said.

_We require clues to the Magister and his location_ , the Silent Brother's voice whispered through Jem's mind making him shiver a little. She wouldn't have heard it. He understood now how this conversation was meant to work. Their magic wasn't capable of cracking through the blocks in her mind so he was to win her trust and get her to give away the clues they needed, as she had when she'd told him she was a Shadowhunter.

"Is your home nicer than this?" he asked.

"Some days," she said looking away from him. Will looked at him and raised his eyebrows. Jem shrugged. He didn't know how to effectively manipulate vulnerable girls and didn't want editorializing from Will on it.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“My mother used to make cambric tea before bedtime and read us stories,” she said. Out of the corner of his eye, Jem saw a look almost like dread cross Will’s face but it was gone as fast as it had appeared. “I don’t remember much else about home.”

“Do you remember being tested by a warlock?” Jem asked ineffectively pushing his own sympathies aside. She wasn’t his friend. She was part of something dangerous. She wasn’t even human. He wrapped his hands around the handle of his cane so he wouldn’t reach for her hand or something else inappropriate.

She turned to him and her eyes were confused then sharp and angry. Her face changed. A drop of water in a perfectly still pond and it wavered and she was a girl with red curls and round cheeks. She looked at the Silent Brother in something like an accusation. The Brother had tried to pull some memory out of her mind while she was distracted and she didn’t take kindly to it.

“Maybe you need to step outside,” Will said in a surprising display of defensiveness. The Brother was still and then glided away. She looked at Will with careful eyes. He turned back to her and there wasn’t any friendliness in him when he said, “Does the glamour trick help with the memory blocks?”

“It ain’t glamour,” she said in an utterly different accent. Her voice had changed along with her face. “This girl’s name is Claire and her thoughts and memories get in their way when they want to paw about in my head.”

“You can read her thoughts?” Will asked but before there could be an answer there was the sound of metal feet on stone and a voice calling out a name. The girl wavered and was herself again, she moved faster than either of them expected and stepped between them to go to the open door. Jem sat on the little chair where he had sat the last time and Will lounged against the tiny table. They both turned to watch her move.

Will responded by grabbing her arm and pulling her back before she could step all the way out into the hall. She stared at him for a brief moment and then wavered again and became him. His shoulders were too broad for the dress she wore but she had all his strength. She pushed him hard and he stumbled backwards as she stepped out into the hallway. She looked at him with wide alarmed eyes - an unusual expression on Will’s face - and then she was herself again and she was running out into the hallway.

Will and Jem exchanged a look and then they were after her. Out in the hallway there was a pair of automatons and a young blonde man who had folded himself around her protectively. One of the automatons held up the Silent Brother who had been standing by the cell. His metal fist was closed on the Brother’s robes and he just hung there. Jem and Will had both drawn weapons but they weren’t quite sure what to do with them.

“Annie, are you hurt?” the blonde man was asking her and touching her face and shoulders where her dress was torn. She shook her head over and over again. She looked up at Jem and Will as he continued to speak in a voice too low for them to hear.

She wasn’t paying attention to whatever was being whispered in her ear. She looked at the automaton and said something softly to her companion. A moment later the automaton dropped the Silent Brother back to the ground. She met Jem’s eyes again but said nothing.

The automatons fell into step behind them as they turned down the hallway. Jem and Will followed at a distance. The stomp of feet in the silence of the city was unnerving. They wound up the stairs and into the large atrium on the main floor where a line of Silent Brothers waited with weapons in hand. Jem turned around the room, hallways led off into other corners of the building. They were right in the middle. The exit from the prisons was designed to be nearly impossible to escape from.

_Halt_ , the Brothers said and the command whispered with such strength through their minds that both Will and Jem came to a standstill as well.

A high whistle pierced the silence and the sound of metal feet pounding on stone echoed off the walls. It sounded like there were hundreds. Jem whirled and he felt Will turning beside him. There were not hundreds but Automatons came in to fill in all the entrances into the atrium. They boxed everyone in.

“It’s going to be a massacre,” Will said and Jem felt a sort of resigned cold fall into place. He adjusted his grip on his weapon and looked around. They had followed Annie and her companion into the middle of a wide open room and the Silent Brothers closed behind them. Beyond them was shuffling metal feet and mechanical whirring.

The room was frozen in the instant before the battle.

Everyone alert.

No one making the first move.

She stepped forward. A girl in a tattered dress with dirty hair and bare feet stepped up in front of the warrior monks of the Nephilim and raised her head. She turned in a circle and her attention snagged on either him or Will, he wasn’t sure. In a clear commanding voice she said, “No one dies here. Please. No one needs to die. Just let us leave. Please.”

You are enemies of the Nephilim, whispered through everyone’s mind in a chorus of voices that made the hair on the back of Jem’s neck stand up.

“There’s no reason for anyone to die,” she said again.

You have sent bombs to our Institute and yet you say you do not want anyone to die? The chorus whispered again and she shot a look at the man standing beside her who raised his eyebrows and looked back as though daring her to comment. She was at a loss.

“We’re leaving,” he said grabbing her arm and pulling her around to face the blocked door before she said anything else. She stopped short of wrenching away but the tension was in every line of her body.

“Theresa Gray,” Jem called at her and she turned back to look at him between the two automatons who had fallen in step behind her. He could barely see her beyond bronze shoulders but her gray eyes met his. He wasn’t sure why he said it but he wasn’t sure he’d have a chance to see her again.

Her face wavered and for a second Will’s eyes looked out of her face though the change wasn’t complete. It was deeply eerie. She held his gaze as she was pulled away and said, in Will’s flawless if poorly accented Mandarin, “Tell everyone to get down.”

Then as though she’d cued it, the battle began. Jem knew he didn’t need to tell the Brothers, they had heard and understood her words but he yelled it out anyways as something whistled. Spinning blades sliced through the air. He wasn’t sure if it was Will who had grabbed him or the other way around but they were holding together and flat on the ground as the blades bit into walls with dull thunks and someone screamed. Then they were on their feet and the automatons stood in the way, all the ways into and out of the room were blocked and they were not moving.

Theresa and her rescuer were gone. Two Silent Brothers lay bleeding where they had been removed to make room for them to pass. The battle froze. Chaos and then stillness. The automatons did not move and the Silent Brothers stood ringed in by them. Jem and Will were the only two things truly alive in the entire room.

“Are they going to explode?” Jem asked.

“If they do, we die,” Will said in a flat tone.

“Cheery,” Jem said.

The automatons did not explode before reinforcements arrived with heavy swords and weaponry that could cut through the metal of the automatons. They stood there stupidly while the Shadowhunters on one side and the Silent Brothers on the other started hacking them into pieces.

As soon as the ways were clear, Jem and Will were pushing and arguing and in some cases dragging people towards the exits. The whirring that had preceded the first explosion began in the automatons still standing and in some of the dismembered ones as well.

“You do not leave a battle while the enemy still stands, boy,” one of the older Shadowhunters said to Jem when he grabbed his collar and pulled him away from the whirring machine.

“They are bombs, they are weapons not enemies,” Jem said in slow clear English with more than a little bit of sarcasm laid over the words.

The whirring picked up, spreading from automaton to automaton and Jem didn’t wait for the man to believe him. He sprinted, though his knees ached with it, towards Will who was helping to lift a Silent Brother wounded by the spinning blades. They were still in the building though far enough down the hallway that though the explosion knocked them off their feet they couldn’t feel the heat. Outside they turned and counted their dead. The two dead Silent Brothers but no one else.

The building behind them, a great white stone structure housing the cells and the tribunal rooms that had stood for nearly a thousand years shuddered and started to fall in on itself. High above them the ceiling of the great underground cavern echoed the sound back to them in a cacophony unlike the Silent City had ever heard before.

“I hate cats,” Will said sitting on the ground and watching it happen. 


	6. Friends on a Bridge

Jem had forced himself up and out into the city. It was still early. London society wasn't awake yet but everyone else was and the slanted rays of sunshine painted the world in gold and shadow. He made his way to Blackfriar's Bridge, moving slow because it wasn't a good day. He wanted out of the Institute before he had to go back and put himself to bed. Most days it was just a fact of life. Aggravating perhaps but not something to worry about but today it made him angry. He wrapped and buried the anger when he met Sophie on the way out the front door. Smiles and a compliment because her hair had looked lovely and there was no reason for anyone else to share in his miserable day.

He made it to the bridge and found the balustrade in the middle where he was as far as possible from the city on either side. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be angry. Angry at his illness. Angry at the addiction that clawed at his attention even now, telling him that if he just took a little more then all would be well. Angry at Will for what he had said to Charlotte the night before. Angry at the blonde haired man who had brought ruin into the Silent City. Angry at himself for not being able to do more to fix any of it. He opened his eyes and stared out at the water of the Thames.

If he did this long enough, the water started to pull on the anger, taking it out to sea. There was nothing that could be fixed or changed by being angry at it. Will lashed out and Jem would not follow in his footsteps. His slow death was not going to make anyone's life worse by saddling them with an addict and a jackass. An addict was bad enough.

He breathed in the stink of the city and watched the filthy water. The stone was cold under his palms when he spread his hands and leaned against it. He turned to head back feeling less miserable though the ache was worse and he would go straight to bed when he arrived. Anger flared again but it couldn't grab hold. The water and the solitude had worked their magic.

She sat on the balustrade farther down. A cat. Orange and black and white with her tail wrapped neatly over her feet and her fur ruffled a little by the wind. Jem stared. It was the same cat. She watched him and tilted her head to the side. She didn't watch him like a cat might, she watched him with all the intelligence of a human being. He walked towards her and she hopped up and scampered a few more feet down the wall so she stayed out of reach. Jem stopped and when he did she turned back to him. She sat back down and wrapped her tail around her feet again.

"Hello Theresa," he said. It was possible he was mad and this was just a cat but then he was glamoured so there wasn't anyone to notice that he was speaking to a cat on a bridge at eight o'clock in the morning. Her tail flicked once but there was no other evidence that she heard him. He didn't get closer.

"No one died in the explosion," he told her and the cat's attention came to rest on him though it had been wandering. "There were a few injuries. You were the only prisoner."

She stood again and this time walked towards him and he tightened his hand on his cane. Why, he wasn't sure, it was not out of fear, he was sure she could become something dangerous if she was going to attack him. Close she looked up at him with those green cat eyes and he didn't move. She was close enough for him to grab. He was having a bad day but he could grab hold of a cat. He could drag her back, subdue her before she could change into something dangerous. They'd throw her back in that cell and anything they did to her would be worse. He didn't move.

She sat back down. Close enough to touch.

"Were you injured?" he asked. Her little cat head tilted to the side but she didn't give him any response he could understand. "Are you who I think you are? Or are you just a cat?"

The cat stretched and Jem saw the drop of water in the pond before she yowled and shuddered and the illusion reformed itself into a bird. It didn't look easy and effortless like the changes he had seen in her cell. This hurt. She was an owl tawny and snow white with pitch black eyes that shimmered out of a white heart shaped face. She shuddered under his hand. He hadn't meant to touch her but it was shocking. Beautiful and shocking. The shuddering stopped and she turned those new eyes on him.

"Are you in pain?" he asked. She hopped away, talons ticking on stone and spread out her huge wings and gave them a bit of a shake. He smiled at her, "Are you showing off?" She ruffled her feathers and tucked them all back in and he could have sworn she was indignant that he would suggest such a thing. He laughed and leaned on the stone beside her. For a moment they were quiet, like friends who had stopped to admire the view.

"Are you going to try and kill us again?" Jem asked.

Birds of prey did not have expressive faces but she looked down and away in something that looked very much like guilt or sorrow. There was absolutely no reason for him to feel this irrational need to comfort her but he touched her wing and her pitch black eyes snapped back to look at him though she did not move away.

"The current theory is that the man who came to get you is your brother, Nathaniel," Jem said and her head bobbed in what might have been a nod. Jem's fingers were still on her wing and he took them back. "Are you prisoners or allies of this Magister?" This brought no response, "I told you we could help you when I thought you were a Shadowhunter but we do offer asylum to Downworlders as well. We uphold the law. We do not just kill. We could help you. I could help you."

She was staring at him as he said that last part. He hadn't intended to say it. He hadn't intended it to sound like a vow. But he had and it did.

There was no expression that he could read in the owl's eyes. Whatever the girl inside was thinking was a mystery to him. The terrifying thing was that he meant it. If she had turned into herself and asked him to go petition the Clave for her asylum, he would have done it. If she had asked him to hide her, he would have done that too.

She saved him the trouble. Her feet scratched and clicked as she shuffled in closer and very briefly hooked a talon over his smallest finger. Then she dropped off the edge of the bridge and snapped her wings open. He watched her push higher and then bank in a wide graceful arc and disappear out over the south bank of the Thames.

He stared until he couldn't see her any more.


	7. Huli Jing

Will gave him a pointed look when he came into the room. He still held his cane in hand. He'd left his jacket and hat to be brushed and hung. There was an owl's feather tucked into his pocket that he hoped Sophie didn't notice. He felt tired and Will had noticed. Will looked just as exhausted. He hadn't bothered to put on a tie and looked a little like he'd rolled out of bed ten minutes before. He was sprawled across one of the sofas in the drawing room with a book held in one hand. The other hand played with a small throwing knife. Calculated disinterest and hostility artfully assembled to create a sort of portrait of an unpleasant young man.

A brief string of a melody played through Jem's mind that captured the hostility but not the disinterest, he'd have to come back to it when he wasn't so distracted to see if he could pull the entire picture together.

"I wish you two wouldn't do that, you're giving me the horrors. It's like you're reading one another's minds," Jessamine said from across the room where she was doing something ladylike, needlepoint perhaps. Will rolled his head and pointed the hostility at her which meant they had had some sort of disagreement that morning. Jem sighed inwardly and considered going out to find another bird to talk to so he didn't have to deal with the two of them sniping at one another. Instead he sat down in one of the armchairs near Will. There were invisible alliances and though he sometimes regretted it, Jessamine was on the wrong side of this one.

"The layabout and addict, you two are quite the pair," Jessie said and Jem felt a little less regret for choosing Will's side of the room. Will sat up slowly. Lazy but dangerous. Jem shook his head and Will flopped back against the couch cushions.

"Would you rather speak in Chinese or go talk upstairs?" Jem asked in Mandarin.

"She does hate it when she doesn't understand," Will said opting for the language.

"Nattering on like foreigners, that language sounds like cutlery being dropped down the stairs. It doesn't have any poetry to it does it?" Jessie said.

"Some of the first poems written by humans were written in Chinese," Jem said in an even voice glancing over at Jessamine who looked very prim and British with her little sewing needle in hand.

"I'm sure it wasn't very pretty," she said.

"Does Chinese poetry come in saccharine, dull and sentimental?" Will asked. Jem chose not to answer. There was a debate to be had here but he had no interest in it. He certainly had no interest in having to prevent Will from reducing Jessamine to tears. It was painfully difficult to crack through Jessie’s armour but Will seemed in a mood to try. He gave Will a look and Will shrugged and went back to lounging on the sofa and looking disinterested.

"Our very own huli jing came to see me today," Jem said in Chinese and Will raised an eyebrow.

"What's a huli jing?" he asked.

"An old myth. Huli jing are shapeshifting spirits, usually they turn from foxes into pretty women and seduce men. Sometimes they're evil, sometimes they aren't. It all depends on the story. Daji was a huli jing who brainwashed a king and tortured people for entertainment. Our girl doesn't turn into a fox but she probably could," Jem said.

"Where?" Will asked suddenly alert.

"She found me in the city. She can turn into a bird as well as a cat," Jem told him.

"Did you spend the mornings chasing sparrows around parliament trying to find the right one?" Will asked smiling as though it was a pleasant thing to picture.

"No, she was an owl, a giant one, white and gold," Jem said, "She'd be hard to miss. Though she flew out across the Thames before I could do any chasing." That he had stood beside her and talked to her as though she was a friend was something he left out. When she wasn't there in front of him, his protectiveness felt unreasonable. She was a part of a bombing that had very nearly killed people and destroyed a huge piece of the Silent City but she had warned them before the attack began. His thoughts could chase themselves in circles for hours on that topic.

"What does she want?" Will asked.

"She was a bird, she wasn't very expressive," Jem said.

"So a bird paid you a social call?" Will asked. In one of the little quirks of speaking to Will in Chinese, he said 'paid a social call' in English because he didn't know the Chinese equivalent. He could have gone with a direct translation but he didn't bother because it wouldn't have meant the same thing. It made Jem smile a little.

"Yes," Jem said.

"Is she a huli jing come to seduce you and ruin your kingdom?" Will asked.

"I don't know what she is or what she wants," Jem said.

"When she's girl shaped she would be worth seducing or getting seduced by, I'm not going to complain whichever she prefers," Will said and when Jem didn’t respond Will gave him a grin. His tempers were mercurial and he was suddenly in a much better mood than he had been. The hostility was gone replaced by an impish glee at the chance to say scandalous things.

"I am going to go rest, try not to seduce girls who might be evil spirits while I'm gone," Jem said.

"Don't worry, there's no one here but Jessie and she would be a terrible choice for a seduction," Will said switching back to English and grinning at Jessamine who looked affronted. She seemed unable to decide which she was more affronted by: the implication that she could be seduced or the statement that she wasn't desirable for such a thing.

"Go do something useful, William," Jem said as he got up and left the room. He was tired and he wanted to be alone with his thoughts


	8. Dinner Conversation

Will woke him after dinner. Someone had brought up a plate of food for him but he didn't remember hearing them. There was a little table by the window and Will sat at it with his long legs stretched out so they were on the trunk at the bottom of the bed. He picked up a piece of bread from Jem's dinner and pointed it at him once he'd sat up. Then he ate it because he was Will.

"I took your excellent advice," Will said.

"Did you?" Jem asked trying to remember what he had said that might be considered 'excellent advice' by someone who spent half the night wandering the city and inventing stories of deviancy to cover it. He climbed out of bed and put on a dressing gown and went to sit in the other chair and save the rest of his food from Will's appetite.

"I went down to the Dragon," Will said.

"I'm sure I didn't advise you to go to a pub," Jem said.

"Well once I'd been there I also went to the Devil's and to that one with the Mermaid on the sign down by the river where even their rum smells a bit like fish," Will said.

Jem checked the clock. It was only nine in the evening. Will must either have done this very quickly or done it in the mid-afternoon after the conversation about Theresa's visit. He didn't look like he'd been drinking all afternoon though his hair was a bit disheveled. His shirt sleeves were rolled to his elbows and he was still stealing bits of food off Jem's plate. He pushed the plate out so it sat in the middle and Will nodded a silent thank you as he helped himself to a sandwich before he explained his outing.

"So I went out and started asking questions," Will said, "About kidnapped children and girls with unusual powers and metal men. I talked to a couple of the fey and a warlock with dramatic hair and some werewolves. Even a djinn but he just stared at me until I went away so that didn't quite work out. Also I think a selkie propositioned me."

He stopped and Jem said, "And what did you find out?" so that Will could have his dramatic explanation.

"The metal men and the shapeshifting girl all lead to one place," Will said, "There are these parties and exhibitions put on by a group of wealthy mundanes in the city. They get together like a social club might and invite Downworlders to give the events a bit of flare. There are faerie drinks and gambling and all manner of exciting things. I'm a little disappointed I've never been invited. About five years ago there was a very remarkable one of these meetings. A new type of creature was to be debuted. A warlock unlike any that had ever been seen before. Remarkable and powerful."

"It was her?" Jem asked.

"A little girl changed into a boy, there was heckling that it was just a glamour, then the little girl changed into one of the guests, and there was a bit more heckling but not as sure that it wasn't a glamour, then the girl turned into a cat," Will said with a grin.

"So it was her,” Jem said. “This is the Pandemonium Club that the Gray family had frequented?”

“Yes,” said Will, “Axel Mortmain of child stealing fame is no where to be seen. Nobody has heard from him in about five years but before that there was a brief flurry of interest in his mechanical men. There were rumours that he would be selling them and that he was building them as weapons. Sometimes the automatons still make appearances at Pandemonium parties or events and carry notes and instructions from Mr. Mortmain but he and his ever so remarkable little shapeshifting girl have disappeared from Downworld.”

“What do we do with this information?” Jem asked.

“I was thinking we would get ourselves invited to a Pandemonium party, something public like a gambling den and see what we can find,” Will said.

“Not tonight,” Jem said suddenly feeling exhausted by the very thought of it. He was fading faster and faster after each dose of yin fen and he hadn’t had any today. He would have to take quite a lot to keep up with Will if they were going out to Downworld parties that evening.

“No, we'll have to tell Charlotte and Henry all that I have learned," Will said, "Are we going to tell them that she visited?"

Jem looked at the soup and pressed his lips together. His thoughts could run in circles for hours and hours about her. His decision on the matter wouldn’t be balanced. He couldn’t trust himself to make the right one. He looked up and raised his eyebrows at Will's blank expression. Will frowned slightly and thought about it.

"The Clave will try and trap her. They'll use you as bait to draw her out and then put her in a deeper darker cell than last time. They'll let the Brothers truly strip her memories even if it destroys her mind or kills her. She's an enemy in a battle we don’t even know all the participants of," Will said. Jem waited because Will wasn't finished. He waited a long time before one of those rare flashes of empathy crossed Will’s face and he said, "And she misses her mother's tea and probably saved our lives."

Jem nodded. The decision didn't need to be said. They both knew what it was even if it bordered on treasonous. Will smiled one of his complicated smiles that even Jem didn't understand and they finished the plate of food without saying anything else. 


	9. Owl at the Window

When he heard the tapping, his first instinct was turn toward the door with an annoyed smile on his face. He wanted to be left alone but he also wanted the company of Will just sitting there and reading. There were times when he went and invaded Will’s room and just sat in there while the other boy read. The harder moods were ones like this where he was lonely and yet craved solitude.

The tap came again and it was not against the door. It wasn’t a knock on wood. It was glass. He turned around expecting a tree branch against the window and reeled backwards a few steps when he saw the owl on the sill. It stood outside the glass, ghostly behind the reflection of the room. It was black as pitch out, a moonless night and she stood against it, the colour of starlight.

The intelligent part of his brain didn’t even get a chance to assemble an argument before he had unlatched the pane. It swung outward and she flapped her wings and disappeared so he could push it all the way open. He looked out at the night and she was gone. He thought he caught the silent shadow low over the courtyard below and then she was back with a wingspan almost as wide as he was tall and he had to back away to make room for her to settle back on the window sill.

“This is highly unusual,” he told her.

She hopped down off the sill and twisted her head around to look at him. It was eerie and endearing and that urge to touch her was back. Then she walked over behind his dressing screen. He watched her go without stopping her or raising the alarm. There was a sound like a muffled cry and then he heard fabric moving. She’d changed back into a girl and she was helping herself to his clothing.

“Hello?” he said but she didn’t answer him right away. When she stepped back out into the room she wore his pajamas. They were just a little too long for her and pooled around her bare feet making her look childlike. He’d worn that same clothing, including the robe she’d tied around her waist not so long ago. It was intimate to see them on someone else. No, it was practical, the pajamas were easier to get on and off and he was so thin his tailored clothing probably wouldn’t have fit over the shape of her. He shook his head. He had an urge to apologize for the line of his thoughts but decided it was better left unspoken.

“I apologize for intruding,” she said in that soft musical voice.

“Not at all, please come sit down,” he said the proper words rolling out of his mouth as though she were a visitor at the door. She let him lead her over to where he had left his violin by the table. She looked at it and started to reach to touch it before pulling her hand away as though it might be rude. He waited to see if she would speak first.

“It took me two years to learn to be an owl,” she said, “You are the only person who knows.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Did it take so long?” she asked.

“Why did you show me?” he asked.

She looked at him like he’d asked a very alarming question but almost like Will might, she buried the expression and her calm was back. She was quiet and still while she considered him.

“I don’t have anyone else to tell,” she said and something in his chest tightened and ached for her. She said it so simply. He had wondered if she’d brought a message or some threat or a warning but it seemed like maybe she’d just come to talk. He imagined them standing on the bridge like friends. Now she sat in the chair where Will had when they’d shared dinner and looked at nothing but him.

“So why did it take so long?” he asked.

“To change into something, I must connect to the spirit of the thing I wish to be. A person’s personality is easiest. People are distinct. Each is in an individual. Animals are harder. They don’t think of themselves as individuals. They don’t understand that. It takes a long time to find the spark,” she paused before adding, “And it hurts more.”

“I noticed that when you changed from the cat into the owl,” he said. “Why do you keep it a secret? It must be seen as an achievement by your tutors.”

She looked away from him and down at his violin. She studied the lines of the wood to avoid his gaze. He didn’t look away and didn’t interrupt her thoughts and finally she turned her eyes back to him.

“It would. They would all be very impressed. There was a party when I mastered becoming the cat. I was 9. All the changes hurt back then but there was cake and I got a dress in pink taffeta,” she said, “But to fly is a guarantee of freedom.”

“Your freedom isn’t guaranteed?” Jem asked.

“No one’s freedom is guaranteed,” she said. “What about your tutors? Would they be proud of you with a warlock in your bedroom?”

Jem smiled, “Perhaps not.”

“I had never met a Nephilim before I met you,” she said.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been a disappointment,” he said and she looked at him with such a serious look on her face that he regretted the joke.

“Your people killed my mother and she was one of you. She refused to join with you and promise her children to you and you killed her,” there was emotion under her words now, “I have nothing of hers but one necklace because of what people like you have done.”

“Theresa,” Jem said reaching for her hand and pulling it in so he could hold it between his. A tenuous bridge between them. Her anger was a wavering thing, a candle flame in a draft.

“Tessa,” she said. “I can almost remember my mother’s voice calling me Tessie but Tessie is a name for a little girl. I’d rather be called Tessa.”

“Tessa,” Jem said holding her hand and watching the little crease between her eyebrows. “Your mother came here, to the Institute, ten years ago. We have the records. I wasn’t here yet but Charlotte was and she remembers a little of it. She came to us seeking helping to find you. The Nephilim sent her away to the mundanes because she had accused a mundane of taking you and your brother. We did that. Of that we are guilty. It was callous and short-sighted and Charlotte remembers her father shrugging when she was found dead but we did not kill her. That I can swear to you. It is true. We did not kill her.”

Her hand tightened in his. At first he thought she was pulling it into a fist but she adjusted her grip to hold onto his. She stared at him and he could almost feel the pull as she searched for the truth in his expression. Her eyes fell shut and she pressed her lips into a tight line.

“Who killed her?” she asked.

“I don’t know. There are theories in the records. Her children must be Nephilim as she was so the Clave did spend some time looking for them, for you, but they never found anything and the Accords were being signed and the investigation got forgotten. The easiest assumption is that whoever took her children, killed her to prevent her from taking them back,” Jem said as gently as it was possible to tell someone about their mother’s murder.

When she looked at him like she was going to cry but he wasn’t sure if it was sadness or anger or some other emotion that was pushing her to the brink of tears. Her hair was loose and when she looked down to blink back the feeling it fell in a curtain. Shining in the witchlight that lit the room and curling at ends and around her face where it wasn’t as thick. He did not reach out to touch the curls though they looked down soft.

“That’s not a surprise to you,” Jem said when she looked back up with her emotions in check. A piece of hair laid against her cheek and he didn’t push it back from her face.

“The Magister would have killed my brother, why wouldn’t he have killed my mother as well?” she said in a flat voice, “My brother is not as I am. No one is quite sure why. No one is as I am.”

“You are singular, not damaged,” Jem said.

“Would you say that if I looked like this?” she asked and her face wavered and reformed as a warlock’s scaled and horned and there were claws between his hands. He blinked at her. It was not a beautiful face but the calm serious expression was still there on this face at it had been on her own.

“We are none of us, the bodies that we inhabit,” he said and she wavered back into herself before frowning at him. He ran a thumb over the knuckles of the hand he held, covered in soft skin again, “You are more than your face. You must know that. You have better proof of that than most. There is a light in all of us and that light, that flicker of soul is who we truly are. Whether we are weak or strong, beautiful or green and scaly,” he smirked and she glanced away from him, “We are more than the vessels we inhabit.”

She took her hand back and looked down at them as though hoping for some answer there. The robe fell down over her wrists so her hands peaked out of the dark fabric. Vulnerable. She had magics that no one else had ever even heard of but she looked uncomfortable and vulnerable.

“You are beautiful, even when you don’t wear this face,” Jem said and his voice only hitched a little bit. It came out sounding almost as frank and honest and uncomplicated as he wanted it to.

She started to speak a few times before finally saying, “I am not, I am a monster.”

"No," Jem said, "No."

"I can change into a person and see into their minds," Tessa said earnest, "Can you imagine something more invasive? More unfair? I wouldn't want it done to me."

"There are some people I'd like to know what they are thinking," Jem said hoping to lighten her mood. He tried to imagine someone teaching a child how to do things like that. Teaching a child to hate herself like this.

"Like Will?" she said and she looked at him as though the question she was asking was deeper and more complicated than that.

"You've read his thoughts?" Jem asked remembering her face as it wavered and flicked and became Will's before she'd run back in the prison.

"It isn't that simple," she said pushing up and away and walking out into the room. She was tall. He had so often spoke to her while she was sitting that he'd forgotten. A Persian rug lay in front of the fire. It was one of the few truly personal touches in the room beyond his violin and a few trinkets he'd brought from Shanghai. She stood on it, her bare feet against the bright colours that had made him think it was something his mother might like. Might have liked. He would have bought it as a gift for her if that had been possible. Instead he kept it for himself. It had been a comedy of errors for him and Will to get it back to the Institute on foot during a snow storm.

“Please tell me what’s wrong," he said and she looked back at him, sad and worried. He slowly crossed the room, approaching her slowly as he had when she’d been an animal on the bridge.

Her next question surprised him, "Do you love him?" When he didn't answer she pushed on, looking away and walking over to the window next. It wasn't pacing. There were too many long pauses for it to be pacing but she was unsettled and he could hear it in her voice.

“He’s the closest thing to a family that I have. Better than brothers, he’s difficult but yes, I love him,” Jem said.

“If you knew he was dangerous, would you still?” she asked and he crossed to her again coming to stand close to her by the window so he could watch her expression to try and decipher what she was thinking.

“He’s unpleasant but he is a good person underneath it all,” Jem said.

“That’s not… I… He’s still dangerous. And he’s not unpleasant to you,” she said. “He sneers at that woman who was giving orders the first night, he snaps at the Silent Brothers who are meant to be treated with respect but he was kind to you.”

“Will keeps his secrets for a reason, I think sometimes it exhausts him to push everyone away but he wants to save the world, perhaps he thought he could save me. He’s a better person than he pretends to be. Whatever it is that you know, I don’t need to know it,” Jem said.

He didn’t talk about Will much with other people. Charlotte had tried to convince him to share details when they were younger. Jem could see what she wanted, to try and help him but even at 13, Jem had been able to see that Will didn’t want to be helped. He’d kept the secrets he knew, each of the pitifully few Will had shared.

She closed her eyes and reached out her hands to take his and stopped before touching him. He closed the space and she held on. The calm and unshakable girl was back before she spoke. If she weren’t holding on he wouldn’t have known she was upset.

“Yes, you do. He’s a good man but he is nonetheless dangerous,” she said evenly and Jem started to protest again but she kept talking and he fell silent, “If you love him, it will kill you. He’s cursed. It’s all he thinks about. I know nothing else about him but he is dangerous and it isn’t his fault but that doesn’t change it. He’ll kill you.”

He was frozen by the rush of thoughts and emotion that ranged from anger to vindication to a deep worry that almost hurt though it wasn’t for himself. He stayed silent. There weren’t any words he could yet assemble to answer that information. Tessa matched his silence. She squeezed his hands and brushed his hair away from his eyes with very gentle fingers, barely touching him. His heart stuttered with the rush of indescribable emotion that went with that feather touch.

She didn’t say anything else. He realized she’d come to tell him that. The bridge had been a test to find out if he would raise the alarm. She’d come to tell him, to warn him of a danger he couldn’t see. The indescribable emotion might have been gratitude but it was too complicated to be only that. She held his hand as you might for a friend who had received dire news.

When she got up and went to change he almost asked her to stay but that couldn’t be done and he was still caught in his own thoughts. When the owl hopped out from behind his his dressing screen he sighed. She was leaving and he didn’t want her to. It wasn’t complicated when she sat beside him with her palm against his but as soon as she was gone his mind would remind him that she was on the wrong side.

He opened the window and she hopped up on the sill with a flap of her wings. She got far closer as an animal than she had dared to as a girl. She twisted her head sideways and he smiled at her.

“You are welcome here if you choose to come back,” he said softly. She disappeared in a flurry of silent feathers and ticking talons. He heard the soft sound of an owl before he closed the window but wasn’t sure what it meant.  


	10. Addict at a Party

It was a large loud room. The chandeliers twinkled and below them an eclectic crowd wove between tables and drank glasses of champagne. It was a veneer of civility but the manners did not run any deeper than that. It was a gambling den and it had that smoky, dishonest air of a gambling den. Jem could smell various types of drugs mixed into the cigar smoke. He shied away from the burnt sugar tang of yin fen though he knew there was no disguising his colouring.

Will moved through the crowd with utter confidence as though this were the type of place where he spent every night. Jem watched him for cues as to what he was expected to do. Will had tried to make a case for going alone but Jem had refused to be deterred and in the end it was the two of them winding through the Pandemonium Club’s party with Thomas outside in the carriage with Henry in case anything went amiss.

He had, for the first time, used his addiction as a bargaining chip to be brought in on this. Addicts in gambling dens were not noteworthy. He’d be less notable than Henry or Charlotte for just the reason that he usually stood out in a crowd. Will had a reputation so even if the wrong person recognized him, it wouldn’t be a disaster. They had the best chance of disappearing into the crowd.

“Are you looking for a little extra?” a wheedling voice asked at Jem’s elbow and he was surprised by how hard he had to work not to turn swinging a punch. It was a voice that brought to life that need for the drug that twisted through him. He turned to look at a thin man with a little telltale twitch to his fingers that spoke of addiction to something though Jem wasn’t sure what.

“No,” he said and turned to go catch up to Will. He kept an eye on the crowd as he did so he could skirt any other dealers.

“Well, look who’s here,” Will said leaning in and pointing towards a card game by the stage. A string quartet made up of a faeries in pastel gossamer was playing music Jem had never heard before. For a moment, he thought that was what Will was pointing at but then he saw the blonde hair. The man who had come for Tessa in the Silent City was smiling over a hand of cards. Well dressed and confident, he flirted with a warlock girl beside him and talked across the table about the spread of cards there.

Jem grabbed Will’s sleeve and pulled him away before he could do or say something that got them thrown out or worse. Understanding why Will behaved the way Will behaved was turning out to be painful knowledge. It changed nothing. Jem had always thought that if he understood, he might be able to fix it. The dark corners of William Herondale could be repaired if you just knew which tools to use. Jem had no ideas what tools he would need.

He treated Will as he had always treated Will like a thoroughbred fighting dog that liked to bite the neighbours. Jem’s eyes roamed over the crowd as they wove away from the card tables. He pretended he wasn’t but he looked for her. He couldn’t see her but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t there.

“We could pop him on the head and drag him out of here,” Will suggested once Jem had pulled them far enough away that they weren’t obviously watching. The blonde man was completely engrossed in his game, laughing and talking and behaving as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He seemed like nothing more than a charming idiot. The kind of person who could loose all their money in a single evening.

“Or we track him and see if he doesn’t lead us somewhere more interesting?” Jem said.

“Then we hit him?” Will asked but it wasn’t really an objection, it was just Will talking. It was empty talk. Jem had learned that long ago on the night he followed Will out into the streets of London to learn that all he did was walk in circles until his feet must have been fit to fall off. It was posturing. It was a story of an unpleasant young man, just as contrived as his sneers and sarcasm.

“We decide at the time,” Jem said. Given the explosions and the two dead Silent Brothers and the way Tessa had tried to pull away from his hands as she’d been escorted away, Jem wasn’t adverse to the idea of hitting him.

“Good enough,” Will said.

They split up and roamed through the crowd. They were both keeping an eye on him as unobtrusively as possible. Jem watched games he didn’t know the rules too and Will played the ones that he did. Cards spread out on felt top tables and wagers called and matched. Jem had no real interest in it all but he almost enjoyed watching the patterns of the games as they rose and fell.

He was standing near a wall. One eye on his quarry who showed no sign of slowing his wagers for the evening. The other on Will who was arguing in a manner that was probably still friendly but Jem was prepared to step in if Will’s temper took it a step too far. He wondered if the temper were true to who Will was or if it was a part of the act like the sneer that disappeared when people weren’t watching. Jem had spent far too much time watching Will since breakfast. He watched him when his attention was somewhere else, looking for evidence perhaps to support what Tessa had said or just for clues to who the real Will might be.

“Nephilim don’t usually come to places like this unless they’re about to start trouble,” a voice said beside him. He wasn’t immediately identifiable. He wore gloves and had taken care to choose a shirt and jacket that would not slip up and show the strength rune on his wrist. He didn’t acknowledge the comment as he turned to look at the girl beside him. She was a little older than he was, strawberry blonde, brown eyes, dressed like an expensive prostitute. He tried to push that thought out because he had no proof of that.

“No trouble,” Jem said. She looked at him with her arms crossed and he met her gaze as evenly as he could. She studied him and he had a flash of recognition he couldn’t immediately place.

“I won’t cause an problems, ma’am,” he said and checked on Will to be sure he wasn’t going to be made a liar by some flash of anger but Will was behaving. Gambling but behaving. So he returned his attention to her. Thin lips, heart shaped face, laced far tighter than propriety might dictate. He couldn’t tell where the flash of recognition came from until she smiled. A tiny little thing.

He frowned at her and she smiled a little wider. She reached out and hooked her little finger through his just like the owl had done on the bridge. He was sure and he hadn’t a clue how to respond. Staring was probably not the right response.

She stepped in close and his whole body reacted with surprise. She whispered in his ear and he could feel her breath against his skin and he almost missed what she said. Her finger was still hooked around his and he tightened his hold on that little bit of touch. His whole body was aware of all the other places that she was not touching him, almost touching, but not quite.

“You don’t care how dangerous, William is, do you?” she asked.

“I’m the only person he can’t hurt. If anyone deserves a friend it’s the one person who can’t allow himself to have one. So no, I don’t care how dangerous he is,” Jem said.

“Are you immune to curses?” she asked and though her voice was different than the one he knew as hers the even curiosity was back.

Jem smiled and turned the little hooked finger over so he could hold her hand. Then he told her the truth because he didn’t care how dangerous Will was but he also couldn’t find the desire to care that she was as well. If he were reasonable, he would have run from both of them. Instead he stood in a corner with a girl wearing someone else’s face and whispered his secrets in a soft voice, “I am dying. I am well past the age they expected me to survive to. He can kill me tomorrow or I can die in the next year. It does not matter. Standing by him, that matters far more than how I find my way from this world.”

“You’re dying,” she said in that even voice.

“I’m a yin fen addict, I won’t make it to twenty, no one thought I’d make it to fifteen,” he said it more bluntly than he usually did and wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just to pull a reaction out of this girl who seemed to take everything in stride. She stared at him with deep brown eyes that weren’t her own.

There was a noise by the door and it pulled her attention. One of the games had erupted into an argument. Will, thankfully was not involved. Tessa turned him back to him, still calm and infuriatingly unruffled. She leaned back in to whisper in his ear and squeeze his fingers as though it meant something though he didn’t know what.

“He doesn’t know that I’m here but he does know that you are,” she said, lips close enough to his ear that he felt them move, “There are guards at all three exits waiting for you. If you go out by the stairs you’ll find a white door that leads through the servant’s hall and out through the kitchens.”

“Come with us,” Jem said into the hair just above her ear. He hadn’t been this close to a girl in his entire life.

“No,” she told him.

“Our friend is leaving,” Will interrupted before she could give him an explanation. She backed off, a little sneer on her face as though she was truly being chased off a promising client. Will leaned into the wall beside Jem and looked intimidating. She shrugged an a distinctly unladylike manner and then disappeared into the crowd. It happened in seconds.

“Huli jing,” Jem said as soon as he’d collected himself. Will swore softly and looked after the girl he’d just shooed away but she was gone like smoke. Jem recounted what he had been told. The blond who might be Nathaniel Gray was making his way towards the exit they had entered by. They could still see him but he was getting ahead of them.

“He’s leading us into a trap,” Jem said as Will pulled him around to see what he meant about their friend.

“Do you trust her?” Will asked and his voice was far more serious than it usually was. Jem met his gaze. He wasn’t sure. His heart said yes but there wasn’t a shred of evidence strong enough to support that belief.

“There are guards at all three exits waiting for us, we check, if there are, we take the back,” Jem said.

She earned her shred of evidence. She had told him the truth. They left before the guards could decide to start combing the crowd for them. Out through the white door and down to the servants entrance. Will flashed a very shocked cook a grin as he stole a pair of pastries on the way by.

Out under the overcast London sky, Will handed him one of the sweets and they ate them as they walked the long way around to get back to the carriage and go home. If Jem’s blood felt like it was the wrong temperature, he blamed it on the rush of adrenaline that came with almost having to fight their way out but he would go to sleep with memories of her fingers in his and the warmth of her not quite close enough.

He grabbed the pillow and crushed it over his head and tried to force his thoughts into sensible patterns but they kept coming back. 


	11. Secrets by the Fire

Will sat down across from Jem and leaned back with his arms crossed. He was wearing gear. He’d been out on some assignment that evening that Jem hadn’t been strong enough for. It was some small thing, one of those assignments that could be handled easily, it didn’t require that he participate. It irked him to be left behind and he’d been talking himself into believing the prudence of saving the large doses of yin fen for the days when it wasn’t a small thing.

“You’ve been dodging me,” Will said.

“I have not,” Jem lied. He had been avoiding him since she had told him. He had been watching Will for three days with new eyes and each little detail he noticed made it hurt more. He could see it, now that he knew it, he could see it. He could see Will calculate what he was about to say. It was tempered viciousness and near cruelty but it was all pointed and surprisingly careful. When Sophia was tired and Will’s first little slight had made her spin and fling an insult back, he’d stopped. He’d stopped immediately, shrugging it off as though it meant nothing but Jem could see it now. He stopped before he went too far, before he truly reduced her to tears on a bad day.

“I’d like to know why,” Will said and though there was nothing in his tone, nothing in his expression, Jem could imagine there was hurt there. They did not avoid one another. They never went this long without finding at least one afternoon to spend just sitting in the same room or joking over some new training topic or even just stealing tarts from the kitchens.

Jem looked Will in the eye and tried to make a decision. That invisible, half-imagined, hurt looked back at him from behind a smile that only lifted on corner of his mouth. Jem sighed and stood. He left the room knowing full well what Will would do. True to form Will followed, talking the entire way to his own room where Jem led them inside and pushed pile of clothing off a chair to sit on it.

“So what now?” Will asked dropping down into the chair across from him. There was no fire in the grate and Will’s room in the back of the Institute didn’t get enough sun to warm it. It was cool inside. A cold, dark, filthy mess.

“When she changes into people,” Jem started and Will sort of dropped backwards as though relieved by the topic of conversation.

“You’re half way to falling in love with a cat, aren’t you?” Will interrupted.

“I choose to ignore that and continue,” Jem said but his heart beat changed at the words for reasons he also chose to ignore.

“Onward then, Sir Gawain tell me what your Dame Ragnelle has told you,” Will said leaning down in his chair with a lazy wave.

As he had been doing for days, Jem ran phrasing through his head. He wanted to explain how she knew but instead he chose the simplest response he had, “She told me that you are cursed.”

Will’s face fell perfectly blank and Jem reached forward and grabbed his sleeve before he could start to argue or come up with a story. Will looked down at his hand where it held his sleeve and then back up at him. His blankness didn’t waver. There was no expression. It wasn’t even shock. It was emptier than that.

“I don’t know everything. I only know that those who love you are cursed to die. She told me that you’re a good man. I think she’s the only person who has ever said that to me about you,” Jem said. Will’s eyes fell shut very slowly. He was paler than he should have been and Jem touched his shoulder but he didn’t turn his attention back immediately.

Will crumpled. It was barely a movement. He leaned into Jem’s hand on his shoulder and dropped his head so his expression was hidden. Jem felt, more than heard, him take a deep breath. And then in a slow measured voice he told the entire story. Jem leaned into him too and Will’s forehead settled onto his shoulder as he talked of demons and his dead sister and the decision to leave his family.

Every detail was painful.

Jem held him and listened without saying a word. Will still had his head down but he was calm as the story came to a close. Jem’s heart hurt. He had always considered it his job to protect William Herondale and that protectiveness was far far stronger now that he knew the entire story.

“I will protect this secret, I swear to you William, I will keep this secret as long as it needs kept,” Jem said, “You could have told me. I would have kept it.”

“I could kill you,” Will said, “You should hate me for risking it. I am impossibly selfish. Impossibly so.”

“I was meant to die years ago,” Jem said and Will finally met his eye, “You kept me alive longer than I should have been able to survive. If this is what kills me, your curse instead of my own, I will count my blessings that I got those years. I would rather die your friend than live without you. There are so many worse things than dying, Will.”


	12. Wild Goose Chase

It had been five days since the Pandemonium Club’s little gambling party and though Shadowhunters had dropped into a few other such soirees there wasn’t anything new to report. No one else had found anyone recognizable. Nate and Tessa had gone back to being ghosts. Even Jem hadn’t seen her. She hadn’t shown up when he’d gone out to Blackfriar’s Bridge. She hadn’t come to his window. He left an extra pair of pajamas folded up behind the screen so there would be something for her to wear if she came again but she hadn’t.

He missed her. He missed her with a depth that surprised him.

It had been a long five days. He was healthy and usually that was enough to keep his mood up but he found it flagging. Sophie and Charlotte had both asked how he was feeling because he was quiet and withdrawn. He’d waved off the concern and tried to keep his spirits up so no one was unduly worried.

He poured it out into music instead. He cracked open the window well after everyone had gone to bed and played to the night. It tried to put her strange curious calm into music. He wrote out the flashes of anger in her and the moments of compassion. He reinterpreted those melodies over and over until he could hear the owl in one and the cat in another. He played to the night and imagined her hearing it.

Will cast him looks sometimes over meals or training sessions but he always stopped short of saying it. Will was the bright spot that balanced out Jem’s worries for a girl he shouldn’t be fretting over. Will had been different when it was just the two of them and more subdued with the others. No one else seemed to have noticed but Jem could see the differences in him.

“I worry that I’ve lost too much of who I was to ever truly go back,” Will said lying on his back in the training room. They spoke in Chinese just to make sure they were not overheard though there was no one around.

“You were a little boy then, you shouldn’t be worrying about going back to the child you were, you should be worrying about going forward,” Jem said. He lay beside him. It hadn’t been a long session and though Jem was tired he didn’t hurt.

They lay silent for a long time before Jem said what neither of them had brought up, “Curses can be broken.”

“I’ve done this reading, James. It isn’t simple. Curses can be lifted,” Will said, “Curses can be contravened or lifted, not broken. You can break a curse of bad luck with a spell for good luck. One cancels the other out but the original curse is not truly broken. A curse like mine is too complex and too risky for a counter curse. I would need to find the demon.”

“So we find the demon,” Jem said sitting up and frowning down at him. They were Shadowhunters, it couldn’t possibly be that hard to find a demon. That it had taken years for them to find Yan Luo after he’d killed the Carstairs tugged at Jem’s memory but he pushed the thought aside.

“It’s a wild goose chase,” Will said closing his eyes a little tighter. “It’s blue. That is all I know. Blue and it has a voice like broken glass and rusty nails. That is hardly a good place to start.”

“But it was killed by your father, it must have been. There would be records so we could find out where they found it and how they killed it and that would give us a little more. Blue is a small starting point but it is a starting point,” Jem said his mind already working over the possibilities.

“You make it sound simple,” Will grumbled.

“You make it sound as though you don’t want it lifted,” Jem countered. There was no answer to that and Jem looked over at him. He lay still with his eyes shut. He could have been asleep. Jem had meant it as a joke. He had been trying to tease out a response and instead got silence.

“You don’t deserve it,” Jem said, “You don’t deserve to bear the guilt of what happened to your sister. It killed her, not you. You were a boy, William, you could have done nothing to change it.”

His mother’s voice was there screaming out his name in his ear and he pushed it away. This was not about his own guilt or his own helplessness to save his family. He reached out and took Will’s hand and held it. Will still said nothing but his fingers tightened on Jem’s.

Will sat up suddenly and turned to Jem with burning eyes. Dark and intense, it was the type of look that held you in place. Other people might have recoiled but Jem simply raised his eyebrows and waited while Will’s fingers tightened harder on his. They stared each other down.

“If we’re going to hunt my wild goose, I want to go after yours as well,” Will said.

“What?” Jem was lost in the metaphor for a moment.

“Finding the thing that cursed me is a goose chase. It will lead us round and round and end no where. We will find false hope and dead ends over and over until we’re all mad with it. You told me once you wouldn’t live like that, that you didn’t want to spend your last few years living from one broken hope to the next. I will follow you down this path if you want to walk it but if we’re going demon hunting on my behalf, I want the right to go looking on yours,” Will said and the eye contact never wavered. Jem sat back and crossed his feet. Will was still holding his hand just a little too tight and he was leaning in with those bright eyes.

“There is nothing to find,” he said remembering the pain of each disappointment when they had gone looking when he was younger. Each failed cure. Sometimes the cures themselves had been painful and miserable. Other times, they had simply failed to change anything. He had hated it. He had hated the hope on other people’s faces as much as he had hated the way it felt when each one died in his chest. He hated the baseless hope in Will’s eyes as he said it.

“If you want to drag me all over trying to hunt down the right blue demon, this is what I want in return,” Will said. “I will not take on Sisyphus’s boulder alone.”

“If we’re going to do this, we do it alone. Just you and I. No one else needs to know,” Jem said. He had been 13 when the attempt to use a milder drug to wean him off the yin fen had taken a turn for the worse. It had worked for days but it hadn’t been slowing the damage the yin fen did, only masking it. He hadn’t been meant to hear it but he could remember Charlotte sobbing over the failure. He would not put her back there. He could bear the disappointments without pulling anyone else down with him.

“Very well,” Will said after a moment of consideration, “Let’s go see what we can do about finding ourselves a warlock.”

He pulled himself up and pulled Jem along with him. Will flashed him a grin and it was one of the happiest looks that he had ever seen on Will’s face. Jem didn’t feel it but he returned the smile. They might not be able to find a yin fen cure but he believed in that moment that anything that might give Will a chance at spending the rest of his life happy was worth trying. If Will wanted to make it a bargain, it was a bargain that Jem was willing to take. His impossibility in trade for Will’s possibility.  


	13. Warlock in a Coffee Shop

Finding a warlock had proved difficult. They had been ignored and refused by each one who might have counted as unaligned. That left them with two choices, to contact those warlocks closer to the Clave and hope that stories didn’t get back to Charlotte or to contact that warlocks farther away. London’s Downworld was one of the deepest and darkest in the world. There were warlocks in the city who were so far beyond regular criminals that ‘evil’ was the only label left.

They had gone the other way, inching closer to Clave allies. Magnus Bane was considered a member of that group and someone who Charlotte had interacted with before but he wasn’t exactly friendly with the Nephilim. He also had a reputation for being about as sane as a box of frogs if what Jem had heard was true. Either because of that, or in spite of it, Magnus had agreed to meet them, glamoured, in a seedier neighbourhood.

Magnus dressed like a French Count from at least two centuries ago though he had thankfully forgone a wig in favour of a sweeping hair style that had to be held up by magic. It was the most absurd outfit Jem had ever seen on another person. It looked like a costume or a joke but Magnus somehow managed to wear it like he meant it. Will looked at it like it entertained him.

“Rumour has it you’ve been running around asking everybody about curses and demon drugs. Is there someone you really hate?” Magnus asked.

“We don’t want to curse anyone,” Will said.

“Well, that is both a relief and a disappointment. Shadowhunters seeking to buy curses are always interesting,” Magnus drawled. He’d brought them to a coffee shop that was run by faeries who dressed as though they expected Voltaire to come through the door and start a debate. Magnus’s breeches weren’t really out of step with the rest of the decor. Jem and Will in dark suits were far more out of place against the brocade and carvings. They also made everyone but Magnus uncomfortable. Magnus behaved as though nothing could bother him.

“Does that happen often?” Jem asked.

“Shadowhunters seeking curses?” Magnus asked, “Not so much. Shadowhunters seeking other magics, that happens frequently. You people always want something. Why take these two young, very secretive Shadowhunter boys who want to raise demons and cure incurable addictions.”

“So we’re already traveling through the rumour mill then,” Will said, “So much for all our attempts at discretion.”

“Will,” Jem said with only a little bit of warning in his voice.

“The interesting part,” Magnus said pointing a coffee spoon at Jem, “Is that you aren’t the first person I’ve seen this week who’s looking for details about yin fen and it’s potential cures. I might give you a discount to if all you want is to see what I might have been able to turn up for her.”

“Who’s been asking?” Jem asked.

“Another addict. Girl who’s just starting to silver over, hasn’t gotten to her eyes yet,” Magnus said, “Usually once it gets to the eyes, you’re done.”

“Shut up,” Will said and Jem kicked him under the table. The Nephilim didn’t often say things like that to him but he knew it was true. He was well past his expiration date and even if Will didn’t like to think about it, Jem had given up on the delusion that he was anything but doomed to this fate. Magnus looked between them, considering before flopping back with a lazy shrug as though it were a petty drama he couldn’t be bothered with.

Magnus didn’t let much slip about what he might know about yin fen but he did listen to Will’s story and asked question after question about the demon. The demon would need to be found and knowing who it was would help with that. Jem had nursed a hope that it could be broken without needing to find the damn thing. Finding a demon was difficult and all their poking through the records about Will’s father’s time as a Shadowhunter hadn’t turned up anything useful about the demon that had been captured in the pyxis that Will didn’t know from having met it.

The records had made Will surly and miserable. He did not speak of his family and going through the records meant working their way backwards through time. The first record they had pulled up was about the Clave representatives going to speak to his younger sister on her twelfth birthday. Will had actually gotten up and left the room without a word. When he’d come back about ten minutes later, Jem had just finished a hurried search through the pile to remove anything else about his family since he’d left them. There wasn’t much but there was a note about Ella’s death as she hadn’t been present when the Clave had come to see her on what should have been her 18th birthday.

They started with the notes on the stripping of Edmund’s runes which were signed by Granville Fairchild and written in a passionless tone. From there they worked their way backwards, making notes on possibilities. It hadn’t been a very fruitful search and it had upset Will more than he was willing to admit.

Jem pulled him into a hug before they left the room to rejoin the rest of the Institute for dinner. Jem wasn’t sure if Will would accept it until his arms were around him and his head was on Jem’s shoulder. Jem wanted to find a way to send Will back home to his family curse free and happy.

Now sitting with Magnus who kept asking questions that they didn’t have answers for, it was starting to look futile. Magnus looked at them with a combination of annoyance and pity. Jem wasn’t sure Will could see it but masked pity was something that Jem had more experience with than most people. Magnus was not the first person to look at him like he was a walking tragedy. Still, he sent them away with instructions and a list of things he would need to help.

Will was surprisingly optimistic about the meeting as they headed back up through town toward the Institute. Jem’s heart wasn’t nearly so confident but he laughed along with Will and tried his best to be as bright as he could be. There was no use pulling anyone else down into his own worries. 


	14. Letter in the Window

When Jem didn’t want him around, Will was inescapable but as soon as he needed him he was off on some adventure in some corner of the city. Jem had checked his room, the library and finally dropped himself into a chair in the drawing room to eat scones and read. Sophie flitted by a few times to check on him and he found himself with a plate of fruit and a pot of tea to go with the scones he had filched himself.

His quiet was interrupted when Charlotte came in to sort correspondence. She crossed the room to her desk with a bundle of papers in her hands that she was thumbing through. Her head was down as she walked. Her hair was coming loose a little at the nape of her neck and her dress was navy blue in a simple style. Her straight forward sense of style reminded Jem of his mother who wore the same sort of simple and plain clothing until she decided to get dressed up. Wen Yu had made an art out of getting dressed up whether it was in the reds and gold of her New Year dress or the blue of her favourite imported gown she wore for impressing the European Shadowhunters who came to visit.

Jem shook himself loose of his memories as Charlotte settled into her chair and he asked her, “Have we heard anything else about the Pandemonium Club?”

She jumped, startled to find him there. He hadn’t meant to be so quiet but sometimes it was easier to be still. He wasn’t feeling unwell but sitting still conserved energy when he was so it had become a habit of saving his strength for when he truly needed it. He put his tea cup down beside all the food Sophie had brought him and smiled at Charlotte.

The piece of paper in his pocket was burning and tugging at his conscience and he reached down to touch it as Charlotte told him all about the nothing they had found and the nothing they knew and the nothing that was happening. He almost pulled it out and admitted to it. He almost told Charlotte everything but the image of Tessa in that dirty dress with her hair hanging around her face in lank lines came back to him. Charlotte would not throw her to the wolves for sport but she also couldn’t protect a wanted fugitive from the Clave.

Jem tucked the paper back in his pocket and went to sit with Charlotte and offer to help with the paperwork. He smiled and sorted and made small talk and pretended like he wasn’t planning on sneaking out to do something ridiculously stupid before the week was out. Charlotte trusted him. She looked at him and didn’t see a weak minded addict or a dirty foreigner like so many people did. She trusted him to make good decisions, to be a good man, to be a good shadowhunter. It hurt to know that what he was planning would make her doubt him.

When Will swaggered into the room and draped himself over a piece of furniture with muddy boots up on the arm of the chair, Charlotte’s attention went to telling him off. Jem had a spark of worry. It was a spark of worry that kept coming back, time and time again. He worried that Charlotte and Henry truly did care about Will. It made him worry semantics. Did their care count as love? Or worse, did they love him? Were they in danger because Will hadn’t managed to be miserable enough to chase them off? Was it possible to chase Charlotte and Henry off of caring for someone?

Jem collected Will and his filthy boots up and dragged him out of the room. Charlotte gave him a small grateful look that made Jem think that maybe Will was annoying enough to keep himself from being truly loved. That in itself was heartbreaking. Charlotte’s faith kept him from doubting himself when he started to feel like he was doing but an addict or a foreigner who would never belong in this city. Will didn’t even have that.

Away from everyone else, Jem handed him the paper he had in his pocket. Heavy bright white card with embossed letters. It was an invitation to a party that evening. Will turned it over in his hands a few times before handing it back and shaking his head.

“That is a terrible idea,” he said.

“I know,” Jem said.

“So we’re agreed that we’re staying?” Will asked.

“It’s at the Lightwood’s house,” Jem said.

Will frowned and snatched the paper back. This was why he needed to tell Charlotte. That a prominent Shadowhunter family was involved with the Pandemonium Club was not something that could be kept a secret. If he didn’t fear putting Tessa in danger he wouldn’t have hesitated. He shouldn’t hesitate. She shouldn’t come before his duty to the Clave.

“She’s going to be there,” Will said.

“Unless someone else is able to get up to my third floor window and leave messages tucked into the frame,” Jem said. That was where he had found it that morning. He tried to imagine the owl clinging to the frame and tucking it in place with her beak and her talons. He did not tell Will how painfully disappointed he was that she hadn’t knocked and woken him.

“Accusing the Lightwoods of collaborating would not be a small thing,” Will said. “Benedict has been making noise about wanting to take the Institute off Charlotte. There’s rumours he’s going to use the bombing as a way to try and prove she isn’t capable of running it. If we could prove he was treasonous, it would make things better for her.”

“It would help if I weren’t,” Jem said.

“You have not committed treason,” Will said.

“I have let her into this building. Willingly. I sat with her and talked to her about an investigation. I allowed her to leave without informing anyone. I have lied for her. I have dragged you into it,” Jem said.

“You told a girl about her mother,” Will said.

“I told an enemy about a Clave investigation,” Jem said.

“Are you suggesting we go to Charlotte?” Will asked.

Jem turned and walked a few steps away and sighed heavily. He dropped down and sat on the floor with his back to the wall and his head on his knee. When he spoke his voice was muffled but he trusted that Will heard him, “I am suggesting that I cannot be trusted to make this decision.”

“Why?” Will asked in an infuriatingly even voice.

“Because I don’t really care about what damned Lightwood is doing or the Clave politics or the Law. I should. I know that I should. But I do not. I want to see her. I want to go because perhaps she is in trouble. I want to go just so I can see her. I need you to tell me if I am making a terrible choice,” Jem said.

“You would be if you went alone,” Will said.

Jem looked at him as he came to sit beside him. It was not the response he was expecting. He was expecting Will to list off all the reasons that this was a terrible idea but instead he looked at him with an even expression on his face and Jem sat up a little straighter and met that gaze.

“If we tell Charlotte, she will have to tell the Clave. The Clave will go there and make a scene of some sort. Lightwood will have to try to cover it all up but a ball is a difficult thing to hide. The expression on Gabriel’s face as his family name is publicly dragged through the mud outside his front door is almost enticing enough to make me want to advocate for that option but we could learn more about the Pandemonium Club and the Gray siblings and the part the Lightwoods have to play in it all if we were more cunning,” Will said.

Jem took a deep breath and turned all that over in his mind. He wanted to be convinced. Sneaking into a party with Will wouldn’t be as difficult as doing it alone. They could watch over one another. There would be more to learn if they weren’t discovered. Besides which, Will was the only other person Jem could trust not to endanger Tessa with some misplaced heroic act of trying to apprehend her.

She was not the danger. It was not her party. It was not her plot. She was just another piece of the puzzle. A girl caught in a web.She didn’t deserve what they would try and do to her. This decision protected her and Will had dressed it up to make it sound like a good idea.

“Am I an idiot?” Jem asked.

“Yes,” Will said smiling a little sadly, “But if you have the chance to love someone, it’s worth taking some risks.” 


	15. A Masquerade Ball

The party was difficult to get into but not impossible. They had the invitation but they snuck in through a circuitous route because as official as it looked, it seemed more of a risk to come to the front door. They came in along back hallways through the family’s part of the house. Jem had lived his entire life in Institutes and private residences were something that never ceased to interest him. What would it be like to have an entire house of your own rather than just a suite of rooms? The Lightwood home was an intimidating example of private property. Massive and impersonally beautiful.

Benedict Lightwood was hosting a party where light from the chandeliers reflected off metal men carrying trays through the crowd of brightly dressed Downworlders. They were like the automatons that Jem had seen in the Silent City but they were better dressed and lacked the grind of metal in their every movement. They moved between the masked dancers and party goers and people drifted out of their way as though it were all quite normal.

Jem had caught sight of Benedict briefly and had moved along before he'd been able to sort out what exactly he had been doing with the woman on his lap. Jem very much did not want to know. It was not the most unsavory thing that seemed to be going on in the corners of the room. Beauty and magic barely covered the fact that this was not a nice crowd no matter how dressed up they were.

Jem was just as dressed up. Combed and costumed into the part of a young man who wasn’t a dying Shadowhunter. He had brushed his hair over with a gold powder Will had found in some shop somewhere. It made the unnatural sheen of it seem like an affectation rather than something he couldn’t change. There was gold in his outfit as well. The suit was white so that how pale he was wouldn't be quite so noticeable. All the details picked out in gold, buttons there, a bit of embroidery. The mask he wore was white and gold as well, covering his more distinctive features behind ivory and gilt. Will had gone costume shopping without him the day before and this is what he’d brought back.

It was the most ostentatious thing Jem had ever worn in his life. That included the red and gold suit his grandmother had put him in when he was seven years old. At first it had made him uncomfortable but by the time he was out on the party floor it had started to feel like he wasn't himself at all but an ostentatious stranger. He had become someone else, someone he would never truly be.

Will had made a small comment about it being, "A relief not to be myself sometimes," and Jem had thought it was one of the saddest comments he had ever heard but now he understood it. It was exhilarating to be someone other than himself. A stranger who wasn't dying. A person who wasn't careful and cautious and conscientious of everyone else first. Someone whose joints never burned until he had to sit and fight down nausea.

Will wore black and silver and his entire outfit was only seemed less extravagant because of the colours. The party was a masquerade and they were not the most ornate people there, even standing together when the fact that Will had found them matching outfits obvious. Jem had teased him about it and Will had admitted that it meant he only had to choose once. He had added that if Jem didn’t like it, “he could wear a floral bonnet instead,” which had made them both laugh.

Will checked in with him periodically as he flitted from one thing to another but Jem wandered the party alone feeling under prepared without his cane in hand. He wasn’t unarmed but his cane was always his first weapon at hand and it felt uncomfortable not to have it. Jem collected information slowly while Will chased it.

The information collection was secondary for him though he didn’t pass up the chance to learn what he could. They compared notes and Will was annoyed each time Jem noticed the same things he did while never straying far from the edges of the conversations.

He found what he was actually looking for by accident near the dance floor during a pass through the crowd. She watched the floor with those calm curious eyes she turned on everything. It was the first time he had ever seen her dressed simultaneously as a lady and herself. He took a moment to stare.

She wore a rich blue dress edged in snow white lace and her hair was looped and piled in an elegant style. Her mask ran down the side of her face from forehead to chin so only one of her eyes was hidden. Against all the blue her eyes were the deep gray of clouds before rain. She was heart stoppingly beautiful. He came to stand beside her. Her smile was polite and just a little forced when she turned to look at him and then it dropped off into shock.

"Good evening," he said. Her mouth formed his name but there was no sound.

"Good evening," she managed with wide eyes, "This. I. You." she started and then stopped. Every single inch of her body language was practiced and polite. Her little glances and the way she sometimes talked with her hands were absent. She was stiff. Jem started to worry. He'd let his guard down as soon as he'd seen her but it was reasserting itself.

"You did not send an invitation," he said.

She gave him a little smile so it would have looked like polite conversation from a distance and shook her head. She touched his arm but failed to start what she was about to say again.

He wanted those words.

He needed to leave.

They had walked into a trap and Will was someplace in this building and he needed to get him and get out. But he wanted to hear what she was going to say.

The music changed and her hand slipped into his. Gloves. He suddenly had very strong feelings about gloves and propriety and why the damn things were necessary. Then she pulled him out onto the dance floor and his eyes widened in alarm under the mask he wore. He didn't know this dance. He wasn't sure he knew any dances. She sort of pushed him and pulled him through the steps, standing nearly as close as she had when she had worn the other girl's body at the last party they had attended.

This time she was herself and that made all the difference. It was different to be so close to Tessa when the little bit of hair that brushed his face when she passed to close was her own. He had told her that who she was couldn’t be changed by her face and he believed that still. Yet. Yet, when she looked up at him with just a hint of a curve to her lips he was glad that it was her own face that smiled at him.

"You need to go," she said.

"I know," he said.

"I did not send that message. I would not, I promise. I shan't," she started and then paused as a step required her to push him back a little to cover his inability to dance, "I shall not contact you again. I swear it. I will not send you messages or endanger you or yours. I will do everything I can to make sure that there is not another attack. I swear that to you, Jem. Please stay safe, stay as far from me as you can."

He nearly froze but the music was still playing and the people were still moving and his hand was still on her waist as she moved and he was dragged along through the steps with her. He must have looked ridiculous. A duck among the swans. It was a strange self conscious thought that pushed through the louder mass of thoughts that all boiled down to: that was not what he wanted. He did not want her to risk herself making promises like that that. He did not want her to feel that was her duty. More than that, deeper than that, he didn’t want her to stop contact.

"You are always welcome to come see me, always," he said in a low voice as he leaned in to her. It was unreasonable and madness fueled by her proximity, what he wanted most was for her to be where he was.

He wanted her to come back to his window. He wanted to take her on carriage rides and trips to museums and parks. He wanted to learn how to coax a smile out of her. He wanted to see her take flight and disappear on golden wings and know that she was coming back. His hand had tightened on hers as the dance came to a close and he should have been letting go and stepping back.

The logical part of his mind reminded him that this was ideal. This was an end to a thing that he should never have allowed to grow this big. It did not feel ideal.

She pulled him off the dance floor and he followed her to a half-hidden corner where she stopped. Her finger tips touched one of the gold buttons on his ridiculous suit. She had long narrow fingers with rounded nails. She wore a plain gold bracelet at her wrist and his eyes followed the curve of her arm up to where it disappeared into a cascade of lace at her elbow. He found her face and it was closer to his than it had been.

“I like your costume,” she said softly.

She fluttered out of focus for a second because he had blinked a too many times in surprise. Will would have had something to say that was funny or witty or charming but Jem could come up with nothing. He just stared at her as she reached up to touch his hair. He barely felt it but the gold dust clung to her fingertips when she dropped them.

“I’ve never had a friend before,” she said, her face still too close for him to think of anything but the geometry of it. The curve of her cheek lit by the chandelier on one side and cast in shadow on the other. The fringe of her lashes. The curve of her mouth as she spoke, “Thank you and I apologize for every terrible thing that has happened since we met. I don’t deserve your kindness. I’ll miss you, Jem.”

Then she leaned up and braced a hand on his chest before she kissed his cheek. Her smile was sad and her hand lingered but still he was a loss for words.

“Go home, be safe, good bye,” she said and then her hand was gone and she was leaving. He still looked at the spot where she had been. He tried to follow her but she knew the party better than he did. She disappeared into the crowd and he couldn’t find a trace of blue dress.

He stopped in the middle of it all. The chandelier above him sparkled and the couples were reassembling for the next dance. For a second he was still as the world turned around him.


	16. Something In the Crowd

  
"Did she really manage to get you to dance? I thought I saw you on the dance floor," Will said when he found Jem standing off to the side battling an ache in his chest. He hadn't found her. She was gone. He had never realized how small his world was before. No one had left him since his parents had been killed. Will, Charlotte, Henry, even Jessamine had been constants. He barely knew Tessa Gray but she had left and promised never to come back as though she were doing him a favour.

It hurt.

"It wasn't really dancing so much as being dragged around as the music played," Jem said.

"What's wrong?" Will asked. It was a question he wouldn't have asked a week before and every reminder of this hidden Will made Jem smile. It wasn’t a broad smile. He had too many questions and too many worries for a true smile.

"She didn't send the invitation, we've walked into a trap and I can't figure out how yet," Jem said.

"It was always a possibility, even when we thought it was her," Will said and Jem shrugged that off. Will looked through him for a moment. Jem was sure that when Will shrugged in response it was an acknowledgment of everything that Jem wasn't saying. Will understood it better than he did. He wasn't sure where that thought had come from but he suddenly wanted Will to explain his own feelings to him. They were all muddled in his head. He didn't get a chance to ask.

The music paused and they both turned with the crowd to the little stage near the musicians. A middle aged man in a gray suit with a clipped beard and a sharp eyes was standing before the audience greeting the guests. He was nondescript, well dressed but utterly average and had nothing about him to suggest that he was anything other than human.

"I would like to extend my thanks to Benedict Lightwood and his son for hosting us this evening," he was saying and Will grabbed Jem and pulled him out of the middle of the crowd. They would be recognized by Benedict if he took the stage and was paying any attention.

Standing back put them in the shadow of one of the automatons. It was taller than they were, maybe seven feet high and wore livery. Will knocked on its chest with a finger and it reacted about as much as an empty suit of armour might. A dull thud but nothing more. Jem elbowed him and shook his head. It seemed like tempting fate and they were already on dangerous ground. Will shrugged but didn’t look away from his consideration of the thing.

Jem turned his attention back to Benedict Lightwood who was thanking Axel Mortmain. He looked a little more closely at the man in gray and tried to imagine the man ordering the murder of a couple and the stealing of two children. British society would have you believe that it was impossible to be upright and respectable looking like that and still be dangerous. Anyone born in the Empire knew the lie of that. Even someone like Jem who was born to share in that legacy that placed gentlemen above all else knew there was a lie to it. Gentlemen were people with power and those with power were capable of evils greater than other men.

Mortmain held himself with that self-important power of a British businessman, a person who expected nothing but deference and wealth. He hadn’t been born to it but that didn't change his manner. He wasn’t a gentleman but he fit the bill required for admission to British Society. He had the money and the manners but he still wouldn’t think twice of dealing opium to Chinese children if it might expand his business prospects. Men like that perpetrated violence from a distance.

Will straightened beside him and Jem looked out at the crowd to try and see what had pulled his attention but couldn’t pick anything unusual out of the crowd. It was swirling colours, warlocks and faeries and humans all mixed into an mass. Something in it had caught Will’s eye but Jem couldn’t find it. He looked along the walls for a familiar face and caught on Gabriel Lightwood glowering at the room but nothing else.

“What?” he asked leaning back into Will’s shoulder to try and see what had pulled his attention. As far as he could tell there wasn’t anything there worth the tension or the stare.

“Nothing, stay here,” Will said and then he squeezed Jem’s shoulder. He left him standing beside the automaton as he plunged off into the crowd in search of whatever he had seen. Jem considered following him but he caught sight of Nate across the floor and it pulled his attention away from Will long enough that he lost his chance to follow. Nate wasn't doing anything worth noticing. He stood and watched the little speech and then turned to his dance partner and whispered in her ear.

Jem crossed his arms and pushed down his annoyance. He was never going out into public again. It was far to easy to lose everyone you cared about when there were hundreds of people about. Annoyed, at himself, at Nate, at Will, at Tessa, he checked to see that Benedict had finished his speech and was shaking Mortmain’s hand. The crowd was released and started to move again. He made a plan about locating Will before he did something rash or dangerous. Once that was done he could make one more attempt at finding Tessa.

He started to move away from the wall but didn't make it out into the crowd.

The automaton behind him was perfectly still until it wasn’t.

He started to step away and it moved. It hit him across the back of the head and he briefly saw the man in gray on stage look his way before he collapsed. He caught one last sight of chandelier light shimmering off of polished metal.


	17. A Surprise for His Sister

 Jem came back to his senses tied to a chair. A painfully physical flashback of being tied up as a child rolled through him and he snapped upright and tried to pull himself loose. The panic threatened to run away with him until he was eleven years old and half delirious with pain again. He could remember smells he had long forgotten of blood and metal and the stink of decay that had come off the demon itself.

He shifted and his joints protested. He had been unconscious long enough for the yin fen he had taken for the party to wear off. It wasn’t the same pain but it was close enough. He was tied and trapped and helpless. This wasn't the same room but the sensation was so similar that he couldn't pull the panic back in.

There was a hand against his and that was different. His attention caught on the difference and he held to it and tried to find the other differences and hold to them too. He groped for the fingers beside him and held on.

A hand in his.

He was not a child.

His parents were not in the room.

There was no more demon poison running through his veins than that which was already there.

He was not back there.

He was not.

He was not.

He was not.

He forced his eyes open.

The hand in his was pale and still and warm. He shifted his arm but couldn't move it much as it was bound at the wrist to the arm of the chair he sat on. The room was a parlour. It was lit by a cheery fire and done up in bright colours and fashionable prints on all the furniture. There was even a book shelf.

Two automatons stood on either side of the fire place which sort of ruined the ambiance in Jem's opinion but at least they were dressed well. It was a idiot thought but he held to it because it kept the vivid memory of his mother’s cracked voice out of his mind. Any distraction was worth holding on to.

He looked over at the girl beside him. Tessa. Her hair was loose around her face and she looked peaceful like she was sleeping. He squeezed her hand and she didn't stir. He shook her a little but there wasn't so much as a flutter of eyelids. She was as tightly tied as he was and she wore a gray suit that hung loose off of her though it was just a little too short in the arms. The suit seemed important but he was too worried about her health to care much for her fashion choices.

Jem turned back to the automatons. He tried not to move his body too much. The pain in his joints and the threat of panic coming back was there if he reminded himself that he was tied to a chair. The ropes at his ankles held them in place in a way that hurt and he needed to ignore that if he was to think up a plan. He looked around the room for some other clue but the silence was complete and there was nothing else unexpected in his field of vision.

A door opened behind him and he heard footsteps, human not mechanical. Something new. Jem took a moment to smooth anger and fear and hammering panic off his face.

"Good morning, Mr. Carstairs," he heard and he twisted as much as he could to see the blond from the attack in the Silent City come into the room. He pulled a chair around and sat down in front of Jem and Tessa. Jem tugged on Tessa's hand again but she wouldn't wake.

"Shush, leave her be, this is a surprise," he said.

"You're Nathaniel Gray?" Jem asked immensely glad that his voice didn’t waver.

"A long time ago. The Magister named me Thaddeus when he took me in. That is the name I use now," he said.

Nate was older than Tessa. He probably had more memories of their parents than she did. Jem felt a trill of anger run through him that he had never told her her name. He had let her be called Annie and let her forget who she truly was. That made him angrier than being tied to the chair did. There were a number of things he wanted to say to this boy who called himself Thaddeus and none of them were complimentary.

"And this is Annie," he said aloud nodding at Tessa. His anger was secondary. He needed information and playing along would get him there. “She’s your sister, why have you tied her to a chair?”

"You make her unhappy and have confused her greatly," Thaddeus said, "I need her to behave properly and so you need to stop filling her head with lies about our mother and father. They were less than we are but the Shadowhunters had no right to kill them. Annie has always understood the magnitude of their crimes but you fill her head with nonsense and that puts her in danger.”

“Is that what you believe?” Jem asked.

“You can tell yourself which ever stories allow you to sleep at night but your people are monsters and she has put herself far too close to them in the name of getting nearer to you. That is unreasonable behaviour in a young woman of good breeding. The common thread in all these poor behaviours is you."

"So you're going to kill me?" Jem asked. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but the young man in front of him was talking to him as though he were a suitor the family disapproved of. His tone was not even particularly threatening, more gently annoyed. Nate looked at him like he was a minor difficulty easily fixed.

"No," Nate said shaking his head, "I am not a Shadowhunter. I do not kill people on whims or for accidents of birth. She cares for you. She fears that you will die of that ridiculous drug you are taking and she wishes that you would not. All I am going to do is give her what she wants."

"You don't have that power," Jem said but it had been said so comfortably and clearly that Jem doubted it even as he said it. He knew that there wasn't a cure but that didn’t mean there weren’t ways to stop him from dying. He had a sudden fear that Thaddeus was going to have him turned into a vampire and his stomach churned at the thought of it.

"I do. I shall grant you what men have searched for for centuries. I shall grant you immortality. You can join with us and you will make her happy and she will come to see how important our mission is and how essential her role once she no longer has outsiders to be worried about," Nate said.

"You think it's that easy?" Jem asked. The question of immortality made him think again of vampires but for a moment he was distracted by the assumption that Tessa could be that easily manipulated. She had stood up to the Silent City and if she had true doubts, he did not think that she could be convinced to abandon them because her brother had recruited some friend of hers to the cause.

"I think you don't know her as well as you think you do but regardless. You certainly know nothing of me. Do you truly believe that I will so easily turn against my people and my heritage?" Jem asked.

"You won't really have the option of disobeying, once the ritual is finished you will not be troubled by thoughts like that," Nate said, “Try not to worry. It’s been done before to excellent results.”

Jem heard the door behind him and he let himself feel the wash of fear. Once he had felt the full emotion he would be able to manage it. It was a trick he had learned during early waves of despair when he'd been told that there was no chance of survival or a cure for him. Feel every inch of it and then lock it away. Trying to hold it back was like trying to stop a tidal wave. It needed to run its course and then you could clean up the damage.

He closed his eyes as it washed through him and he had a moment of relief when he opened them to see not a vampire but a pair of warlocks.

The relief didn’t last long. 


	18. A Spell

"A shadowhunter is an interesting choice," the tall thin warlock said leaning down over Jem to look at him like he was an unusual specimen in a museum. Jem indulged an moment of imagining punching her in the face but said nothing. He was still weighing options and trying to make a plan.

"It's rather illegal and most people do not like to test the Clave's resolve where their own are concerned," the short one said to Nate, ignoring Jem completely.

They were both women and they wore dresses in bright jewel tones. The taller in peacock blue and the shorter in a fuschia that hurt to look at for too long. They talked back and forth like the conversation was a ball they were playing catch with. Jem had already pushed the wave of fear out and shut the door behind it but they hardly put him at ease.

"I thought you had agreed to perform this spell," Nate said.

"Dear, we're just pointing out the trouble you might get into should anything go wrong. There are very few cases of doing this with Nephilim and most of them end up bleeding to death in Clave courtrooms," the one in blue said. She spoke gently like she were talking to a small child. It was apt. He had sounded just a little bit petulant.

Jem looked at him and tried to see Tessa's quiet serious calm in him. He had all the power in the room, he issued the orders and yet he held none of her authority. She had said that her brother was not as she was and had meant the magic but it was deeper than that. Nathaniel Gray had none of his sister's strength no matter what name he chose to use.

"What is the spell?" Jem asked.

"Nothing you need concern yourself with over much," the shorter said.

"I have heard talk of an immortal life of perfect obedience, that concerns me," Jem said and he let some of his anger and his fear become harsh sarcasm as he spoke.

"Shush," the warlock said and opened a bag. Jem cast around for an idea or a weapon or a way to signal for help. There was nothing. He looked at Tessa again but she was still unconscious. He adjusted his fingers and pinched her hard. There might have been a flicker of reaction in answer to the pain. He tried again and this time nothing.

"If you are so sure she will thank you for this, why have her unconscious?" Jem asked. There was no possible way appealing on his own behalf would have any effect on this but perhaps he could be convinced on his sister's behalf.

"It's a surprise. She'll be vexed initially but she will come to see that this is truly the best course of action for all of us. I care about her more than anyone else. There is no one else to take care of her but me. She is the most important thing and she will do her duty to this cause," even when he was passionate there was nothing about this boy that commanded either respect or fear. It was almost a tantrum. Jem sneered at him at little but the tirade cut off by a knock at the door.

Nate perked up and he said, "Oh, she’s here. I’ll introduce you.”

Jem’s attention went to the warlocks who were marking out a spell circle on the floor. He knew distantly that at the academy basic understanding of spells was a course of study but he’d never learned it. Between his health, Will’s abuse and Jessamine’s disinterest, they’d managed to drive away most of their tutors over the years. He was trying to remember if that was what wolfs-bane looked like and if he knew anything about what he did.

Nate returned with a pretty warlock girl beside him. She was dressed fashionably in pink and yellow with her hair done up in a cascade of dark curls. She had a pair of horns twisting up from her head and her eyes were solid black from lid to lid but otherwise she looked quite human.

“She’s mine,” Nate said smiling at her, “Aren’t you darling?”

“Of course, Thaddeus,” the girl said and the way she looked at him made it crystal clear. Mine. That was what he had said. He hadn’t meant as a wife or a lover. What was about to happen to Jem had been done to her. Nausea rolled through him.

“Why?” Jem asked.

“Immortality,” Nate said simply, “She has given me forever and in return I keep her safe. It isn’t such a bad arrangement.”

Jem’s attention flitted to the warlocks who were still sorting out their spell materials and bickering over rune choices. He looked back at the pair in front of him. The girl watched Nate and another piece of who the man was clicked into place. He wanted to be adored. He had created a person who existed simply to adore him. Jem spared a flitting, panicked thought to wondering what Tessa would want.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her and she looked at him with a empty kind expression, “Not only that this was done to you but that you are bound to an idiot like this.”

“You can say what you like. It changes nothing,” Nate said, “Darling, we need not listen to him. Away you go.”

The girl turned and left the room without a whisper of argument. She looked at Nate like he was sun and air. Nate had never even bothered to mention her by name. She was a thing. A means to an end. Just like Jem was. Just like Tessa was. Anger rippled through Jem all over again. This man was a stupid child using powerful magic to push people into the places he thought they should be.

The chair was attached to the floor. Maybe if Jem were stronger, if he weren’t dying slowly, he would have been able to pull it up or pull himself loose. He couldn’t but he gave it another try which made Nate smile at him. He wasn’t quite sure how he would manage it but he was very sure that he would find a way to wipe that stupid smile away.

Nate left the room and Jem looked back at the spell circle being chalked out around them. Tessa did not move. The warlocks refused to speak to him. He kept planning and kept coming up empty. 


	19. Waking Up

Nathaniel Gray had entered the room and sat down across from his sister with a vial of smelling salts in one hand and expensive pistol in the other. He had spent the last ten minutes trying to prod her awake. He had talked the entire time and Jem hadn’t said a word. There was nothing to say. And somewhere, a dark part of his mind was terrified that if he said anything it would prove that the spell had worked. He would say something simpering and find that though his mind was still free, his body was not.

Tessa stirred and groaned and Jem tighten his fingers on hers. She shook her hair out of her eyes and looked in confusion down at the bonds that held her to the chair. He saw something very like his own near panic cross her face and he tightened his hold on her hand until she turned her storm cloud eyes to him.

They were palm to palm with their hands bound together by a thick blue ribbon. It had been looped and knotted around them until it formed a complicated pattern. It was horrible and beautiful, inscribed with runes and patterns in iridescent ink. There were runes painted on their palms as well but they were hidden. Jem had tried to twist it off so that it wasn’t touching him but had given it up as futile. He had resorted simply to holding Tessa’s hand in his while he rode out the waves of exhaustion and pain and panic that took turns trying to destroy what was left of his composure.

The warlocks were gone. They’d finished their work and told Jem to enjoy his new life before bustling away. He had been waiting for something, anything, to happen for what felt like hours but it couldn’t have been that long. His eyes were heavy and grainy and everything hurt. He was on the brink of losing consciousness but he refused to allow it. He knew that pigheadedness would only keep him awake so long.

"Tessa," Jem said. She turned to look at him with wide eyes. He expected fear but there was none of it in her face. Her expression was angry before it smoothed out to her usual calm. The anger was still there but it didn’t spill over into uncontrolled rants or tantrums.

She turned instead to look at Nate and said, flat and dark and dangerous, “How dare you?”

“You will come to see that I have done this for you,” Nate said, “This is better.”

Tessa jerked against her bonds and her hand flexed against his as she tried to pull lose of the ribbon that bound their hands. The runes on the fabric had been fading slowly since the warlocks had finished wrapping it around their wrists and binding them together.

Nate was doing this in her name but Jem couldn’t find it in his heart to put the blame on her. He didn't have much range of movement but he rubbed her hand with his thumb and hoped it was at least a little bit comforting. Her attention went back to him but it wasn’t a comforted expression, it was a calculating one. She was planning.

“Don’t think about it,” Nate said.

He had a pistol in hand and he waved it about far too carelessly to be a marksman. As in everything else, he was an idiot with tools that far outstripped his means. He pointed it at Jem directly and said, “If you try to change and run and ruin this, I will simply shoot him.”

She spat out a swear word that Jem had never heard anyone but Will say aloud and her brother smiled like it was an adorable quirk. She sat back, her face smoothing out again into blank stoicism. The flashes of emotion were always quickly buried. He was reminded of Will and his ability to mask his feelings and he squeezed her hand again. She didn't look at him but she held on and took a deep breath.

"This is what you wanted," Nate said.  
  
"I wanted him to live and instead you take my only friend and try to turn him into a mindless servant. What you did to Ruby was monstrous and you’re going to do it again?" she said.

"It isn't mindless, it is only that he'll want what you want. He won't leave you or abandon you. You're my baby sister and as you've made a terrible choice of attachment I'm trying to protect you from getting your heart broken," he said.

"Forget my attachments. I made a terrible choice in trusting you. I will leave you. This is the final trespass, this is the unforgivable one," Tessa said with her eyes on Nate and his lazy gun.

He closed the distance between them, moving fast for a mundane and leaned in close. She couldn't pull any farther back but she tried. His eyes were bright and blue and empty as he said, "You have no where to go. You need me far more than I need you, Tessie," the name came out a sneer, "Will you go back to the Nephilim so they can lock you away and cut you into pieces to find out what you are? This spell is direly evil in their eyes. They’ll kill you both for it, would that be better?”

“This spell is evil, in that they are right” she said.

"But nonetheless, you need me, baby sister," Nate said.

"That isn't how this works Nathaniel and I think you know it," she said softly putting the same emphasis on his name that he had on hers and he jerked away from her with a glare. She wasn’t just angry but determined. Stubborn. He could almost feel it himself, as though it were coming off of her in waves. Determination and anger and then a roiling sort of turmoil below that.

“I have things to do, I’ll come and speak to you when you are quite done with your hysterics,” Nate said. He stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Jem heard the lock turn.

Tessa turned her attention to him and her mood softened. Concern and warmth mixed into a cloud of anxiety. He wasn’t just seeing it on her face. Her face was calm and serious. He could feel it like the emotions were his own.

Alarmed he looked down to see that the runes were fading away to almost nothing on the ribbon and he struggled against it. Whatever the spell did, it was working. A binding that tied him to her. “He will want what you want,” Nate had said and knowing what she wanted would be the first part of that.

“He’ll notice what I did in a few moments,” Tessa was saying and it pulled his attention back.

“You sent him away?” Jem asked.

She didn’t answer because she was already changing. Unlike him she wasn’t truly trapped. Now that she was awake, she could escape. She shrunk down and vanished into the suit.

Her emotions cut off. The connection broke completely. He could feel her and then it was gone like a snuffed candle. A piece of him, deep in his chest and well below any conscious thought, shrieked to lose the contact. It wasn’t his heart. It wasn’t a part of him at all. It was something the magic had been trying to create down inside him. His skin crawled and he shook the ribbon off now that it was loose so that it wasn’t touching him.

Tessa, a little orange and black cat, climbed loose of the pile of clothing. She skirted the piece of fabric as she leapt down to the floor. She was light on her feet and looked as comfortable in the cat’s body as she did in her own, maybe more so.

Once she was back to the ground, she turned back into a girl. She wavered and was impossible to look at directly until it was done. Jem couldn’t have said if there was a point where she was only partially human because his eyes refused to see it. She coalesced into herself again and the trailing end of the spark of pain that came with the transformation shot through Jem.

He shut his eyes. Her feelings hadn’t stopped invading his because the spell had been destroyed. It was something in the magic of the transformation. Her emotions were back. They mixed in with his own and left him staggered. She touched him and he jumped like she was going to burn his skin but it was just a spark of panic. There was no pain to her touch. There was no change in the sense of feeling. There was just her hand on his arm.

“He’ll be back soon, it wasn’t much more than a glamour and he’ll realize what I did. He’s not so stupid it will hold forever,” she said.

He opened his eyes and looked up at her. Her face was close to his which was a relief because she wasn’t wearing anything. He wasn’t entirely sure he could stop his attention from wandering if he was given the chance. The brief image of the shape of her held in his imagination and he felt rude and embarrassed. She was trying to help and he was thinking about her body. He pushed that thought away to join all the other things he wasn’t thinking about.

“Do you have a knife?” she asked him. Her attention was incomplete. She was too anxious to think about any one thing for too long. They didn’t have much time.

“My wrist sheaths are gone,” he said, “I have one in my boot and the scabbard is still at my back but I can’t tell if the blade is still there.”

Her hands were light on his ankle as they pushed his pant leg up and pulled the blade loose. He looked down at her and then away because there was nothing about the line of her back beneath her hair as she crouched in front of him that he was meant to see. Instead, he looked toward the art on the wall. A landscape done in watercolours. Her touches were glancing as she cut his feet free from the ropes and then moved up to free his wrists and then the rope that wrapped around his chest.

He looked at her again and then away as her worry spiked. It wasn’t about getting caught. This time it was about him. He moved slowly even now that he was free. His body protesting being forced to stand. She touched his elbow and then backed away. His lungs burned. Things that rarely hurt like his hips and his back were exploding with pain. The tension, the fear, the restraints, the magic, and the long receded yin fen all wound together to push pins and coals into every joint.

He could sometimes forget that he was dying but not in that moment.

He shrugged out of his jacket once he stood. His shoulders protested and he ignored them as he pulled it around her. Confusion rippled through her. She was not expecting him to do it. Surprise and confusion and a deep protective warmth that he mistook for his own for a moment. He had never imagined anyone, even Will, turning that kind of fierce protective attention onto him.   
  
He wanted to keep her safe and all he had to offer her was a jacket. She took it like it was something far more important. She didn’t go to get the clothing she had worn before, she pulled his jacket around herself before she went to push open a window and see how high they were. Her body was long soft lines and his eyes traveled up the shape of her legs to where the length of the jacket mercifully stopped him from seeing anything else. It had been too big on him - untailored but close enough for one party - and it hid her away. The shape of her hips and her waist were there but the details he wasn’t meant to see were hidden.

“What does the spell do? Tell me exactly,” Jem said softly when he joined her at the window. Her hair was trapped beneath the collar of the jacket and the colour was even richer against the white than it was against the other clothing he’d seen her wear. Light brown with highlights of gold and pieces that were almost chestnut mixed into the colour of honeyed oak. He could lose himself in the details of her. He wanted to.  
  
“The Magister had intended to do it to me once. It will give me access to your powers, your runes, I suppose. I know so little about your magic. It will also give you some access to mine but done like this, I don’t know how much. The other way it would have been complete but like this I don’t know. One will be master, one will be servant. I am the master," she looked down at her hand where a ghost of the rune was still visible, "If it were complete you wouldn’t be able to refuse me and you would do as I say. It isn’t complete,” she said the last piece like a plea and he could feel how desperately she wanted it to be true.

“It is started,” he said. Her expression crumpled, the anger and guilt pushing up into it so he could feel it as well as see it writ across her face. He touched her arm because anything else was too much, too forward.

“What do you mean?” she asked in a small voice.

“I can feel you,” he said, “I know what you’re feeling. That’s the start of knowing what you want.”

“Touch the window,” she said looking up and meeting his eye.

He went to do it. His hand lifting without his mind telling it to do so and he stopped and froze. Then he forced it back down. It wasn’t difficult. It was like changing his breathing pattern. It just took a conscious thought. He wasn’t mindlessly obedient but she had some power over him. Horror and relief rolled through them. He felt hers and it strengthened his. He wanted freedom but he could survive this. It was far better than what her brother had promised him.

“You need to go,” she said.

“And this time you need come. I will keep you away from the Clave, I swear I will. Anyone who would do this to you needs to be run from. He would have done this to you and your brother did. I will find you someplace safe. I promise,” he said leaning into her.

He wasn’t sure if it was some piece of the magic or if it was the proximity of her with her downcast eyes that caused it. Maybe it was knowing that she returned every inch of that confused protective wanting that ran through him. Whatever was the cause, they were tilting together.

Her forehead found its way to his shoulder and he hesitated before wrapping his arms around her. She stepped in closer and rested against his chest like she’d been designed to fit there. They didn’t have time to melt into the warmth and the nearness but for a moment they did. She calmed and his confusion evaporated.

It couldn’t last and it didn’t but for just a flash it was something beautiful. 


	20. An Unexpected Ally

In further proof that her brother wildly underestimated her and didn't know her at all, Tessa used a little finger sign of a spell to push open the door that he had locked on his way out. She moved with grace on bare feet out into the hallway and then looked up and down the empty space. Jem stayed near her. He wasn't unarmed. They hadn't bothered to take his sword and he held it drawn now. It was a short blade, the only kind that you could hide beneath a suit jacket.

Sword or not, he was going to be useless if it came to a fight. He was struggling to remain on his feet. Tessa kept looking at him with that crease of worry between her eye brows and a riot of feeling underneath the expression. She still wore nothing but his jacket. When they rounded a corner she backed up into him and pushed him back out of sight.

"Nephilim," she said.

"Change, I can talk us out," he said. There was a very good chance that was a lie but if she were already a cat, she would have an easier time making a run for it if things went sideways. She leaned into him and kissed his cheek like she had after the dance and his traitorous mind focused in on the sensation of her body pressed into his.

She wavered and became impossible to see again and the little calico cat with her big green eyes sat in the puddle of his jacket. He sheathed his sword and picked up both the cat and the clothing. A real cat wouldn't have taken well to being held as close as he held her or to having a jacket draped over her but Tessa cuddled into his chest. The wall had come down over the flow of emotions again. They couldn't reach him through the change and he was grateful for it.

Around the corner was Gabriel Lightwood and Jem found something else to be grateful for. Gabriel was an arrogant thing but there was a good man under all those trappings of superiority. Will could never see it. The two of them didn't get along but Jem had thought once that if he hadn't thrown his loyalty so completely to Will then perhaps he could have been friends with Gabriel. While he did not in the slightest regret his choice, Gabriel was a better person to run into in the dead of the night than his father would have been. Jem tottered forward and laughed a little as he thought fast.

"Carstairs?" Gabriel said looking at him with utter bafflement.

"I thought Will hated you," Jem said.

"What?" Gabriel asked.

"Will found himself an invite to this mad party at one of his gambling dens or something. I should have known better. Did he bring you along as well?" Jem asked. He knew full well that Gabriel hadn't gotten an invitation from Will but it seemed like a plausible explanation for why he was there and it left Gabriel with the option of pretending that this wasn't his house. Jem stumbled a little bit and Gabriel's face went from barely hidden shock to distaste.

"You should leave," Gabriel said.

"Trying," Jem said leaning into the wall as though he were drunk or high. He hated playing the addict card. Hated it but maybe, it was his ticket out. Gabriel grabbed a fist full of Jem's shirt and pulled him along the hall. Rather than having to find his way out he was getting an escort. Gabriel dragged him out to a servant's entrance, red faced and angry. He shoved Jem out the door and he didn't have the feign the stumble. He was so tired and so sore that he wasn't entirely sure he would be able to make it home.

"You would do well to forget that you were ever here," Gabriel sneered.

"Won't be a problem," Jem slurred. It had started as an affectation but the weight of exhaustion and the trembling start of the feverish withdrawal wasn’t so different from being drunk. It wasn’t faked when he stumbled over the syllables of: "Dreadful party."

Gabriel considered him and blurred. Jem’s eyes had fallen shut. He forced them open again. He wasn’t safe yet and someone was going to notice he had gone. Especially out here on the lawn. Gabriel looked angry and judgmental but he usually did so Jem didn’t spend too much of his limited energy on that. He was running on adrenaline and stubbornness and he was running out of both. The cat in his arm, warm and soft and not much bigger than a kitten felt heavy enough to make his shoulder burn.

Gabriel held onto the door as though he wanted to slam it but he didn’t. They watched each other. Gabriel swore at him, fluently and creatively and Jem managed a smile but nothing more. Gabriel’s hand closed around his shirt front and yanked him forward. That hurt more than carrying Tessa did. He nearly fell again and he dropped the jacket and the cat. Gabriel slammed the door shut behind them hard enough to shake the frame.

“Go, stupid cat, get,” Gabriel was saying but his voice was far away and the soft warm furry thing that had been so important a moment before was gone. Jem closed his eyes. He was going to fall down and die on the Lightwood’s lawn. That was embarrassing and the last person he would see would be Gabriel Lightwood sneering. He reached into the parabatai bond and latched himself around that tether. Will was hurt but still stronger than he was and he held onto that strength and forced his eyes open.

The cat sat nearby and watched him. Gabriel yanked him upright and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Jem frowned but accepted the help because he really didn’t want to die in this place. Gabriel hauled him down the long sloping lawn to a carriage house where he dropped him onto the bench in one of the cabs. There was not a small amount of swearing in the process. Jem had collected many insults over the years about his addiction, his heritage, his choice of friends but he almost doubled his collection as they cross the lawn.

Jem wavered in and out and the process was a blur of tiny moments he had been able to focus on mixed in with swatches of time given over entirely to joint pain or nausea or the sweat of a fever creeping up his spine. Once he was inside the carriage, his body tried to give up and fall asleep but he fought it. He still wasn’t quite sure what Gabriel was going to do. He fought and fought but eventually he ended up curled on the floor because his balance went and he fell of the seat.

“Because I need to go to the Institute now,” Gabriel’s voice came through the door of the carriage and there was another voice but he couldn’t hear it. The soft sound of sleepy horses. The jar of carriage wheels on cobbles. A brief flash of Gabriel’s face over him looking worried and angry. The sound of a bell. Raised voices. Charlotte. Stairs. Sophie. White sheets. The awful numbing relief of the yin fen and then he finally fell away into oblivion.


	21. Weaving Lies

It was Charlotte, not Will who was there when he woke up with the acrid burn of yin fen on his tongue and the lingering pain of over exertion in his limbs. He blinked at her and something rude almost rolled out of his mouth. He stopped it. He was deeply frustrated and miserable and he wasn't sure why. Charlotte sat working on something small in her lap, a notebook perhaps or some bit of embroidery though Charlotte so rarely had time for that sort of thing. He was not frustrated with her. Shaking his head to clear it made it ache and the realization that came next made it worse.

He wasn't frustrated.

Tessa was.

He wasn't swimming in his own misery it was hers.

"Did they arrest her?" he asked and his voice was cracked and broken and he sounded like the invalid he felt like. It made just a touch of that misery his own.

"Your shape-changing friend? No, she flew off before she could even give a proper explanation," Charlotte said and she didn't sound happy. Nonetheless, she crossed the room, helped him sit up and passed him a glass of water before she continued, "I want you to tell me what happened, I need to understand this ritual."

Jem looked down at his hand when she pointed to it and saw the ghost of the unfinished rune on his palm. It hadn't vanished, it sat there like a reminder or a promise. He had escaped his subjugation but here was the reminder that it was only by a fraction. He touched it with a finger but it had no texture. It wasn't gray like a faded Shadowhunter rune, it was blue, like a partially healing bruise.

Revulsion rolled through him and he rubbed his hand against the covers though he knew it was futile. Like a bruise, it couldn’t be rubbed away. He felt his face pull into a grimace and smoothed it out.

He looked up at Charlotte and told her about the ritual because that was what she had asked. He told her everything he knew of the supplies and the runes and the words that had been said. He didn't remember how he got home, vague flashes of bumping along on the floor of a carriage and people yelling but little else. Once he had explained the spell, he waited for Charlotte to ask the next questions before he asked for the pieces he was missing.

"It is illegal," Charlotte said.

"That isn't surprising," Jem said finishing the glass of water. She refilled it and passed it back and he started on that one as well. Water washed the yin fen out of his mouth and made him feel clearer, sharper.

"You were unconscious for 3 days and it wasn't clear if you would survive," Charlotte said, "We did not call the Silent Brothers to examine you nor bring the medicines only they have."

"Why?" Jem asked. He had spent more time with Silent Brothers than most. They were regularly called when he was sick. To allow him to lie dying and not call was unusual. It wasn’t a punishment, Charlotte wouldn’t do that. He waited for her to tell him why.

"It is not just illegal for the spell's caster. To be subjugated, you are a threat to the Clave. The control is subtle and complete, nearly undetectable. Your loyalty could never be trusted and the person you are bound to, this shapeshifting girl, would have access to all your Angel-granted abilities and skills. That is against all the Clave and Covenant stands for. You would both face death, in the name of protecting all we hold dear," Charlotte said in a flat voice. Jem wondered if she had practiced this speech.

"Am I to be executed then?" he asked.

"As of this moment, there are 4 people who know the truth of what happened to you at that event," Charlotte said in that same flat voice, "Myself, Gabriel Lightwood, the Gray girl and you. I have not passed this information onto Will, even when he was ranting that the Brothers be called to examine you."

"Why?" Jem asked while a strong emotion he knew was his own built in his chest.

"Because the runes are on your skin. It would not be necessary to give you a trial. That the magic is incomplete would not matter. I have looked into the precedent. Incomplete spells are unheard of. There are a grand total of 7 completed bindings with a Shadowhunter including two where they were the ones doing the subjugating. No one has ever had the person they are being tied to orchestrate a mid-ritual escape. Do you know why she did it?" Charlotte asked.

"Did she tell you?" Jem asked. He toyed at the edges of Tessa's emotions like they were the parabatai connection that held him to Will and he tried to make sense of what the answer might be.

"She said it was because you returned her name to her. She claimed that you 'deserved better' I believe, were the words she chose," Charlotte showed her first crack of emotion then: a small sad smile.

Jem was distracted from the answer because the connection he was playing with pushed back and the wave of relief that he felt made him sigh like he had been drowning and finally found the surface. She had worried about him while he was sick.

His heart bounced around his chest and he turned his attention to Charlotte without letting it show. Suppressing emotion wasn't so different from suppressing pain which he did frequently enough that most people didn't realize how sick he was on his worst days. He could even hide it from Will when he put in the effort. So he hid her borrowed relief and his own bouncing heart and returned Charlotte's smile.

"I have only been not cruel to her but I think she has had so little kindness in her life that even that is enough to make her think well of me," Jem said and then he told Charlotte of the gambling den and how she had warned him so that they could escape.

He did not tell her the full depth of their relationship. He did not tell her about the late night visit or the invitation. As they talked it came out that Gabriel had chosen to omit that the party had been held in his family's home and had made it sound like a mad idea of Will's. Will had maintained that story when he had finally been located in the company of Magnus Bane, of all people, around dawn.

It was a web of lies and it just kept getting bigger but the more he told Charlotte, the more he risked Tessa's safety and he wouldn't do that so he kept weaving it together. He wove in Gabriel’s lies and Will’s and it formed a complete tapestry that hid all the things they didn’t want known.

When Charlotte finally left him alone with all his half-truths taken away as though they were gospel, he reached out and nudged the connection. Whatever it was like for her, she could feel that and reacted to it. That warm confusing affection that he refused to let himself name pressed back against him as he started to fall back to sleep. He wouldn't name it, even in the depths of his own mind where his desires lurked but he could wrap himself up in it.

And he did until he felt a twinge of regret just before it snapped off and he was left alone in his own head as she retreated behind the wall of a change. It was both a relief and a loss and he fell asleep again battling that confusion. 


	22. Will's Tooth

Will showed up in his room before he was well enough to get up. Jem had never considered how much the Silent Brothers helped. It had always felt a little like the yin fen was the only thing that he needed but now, recovering alone with nothing but what Sophie cooked up to help, he missed their expertise. He was propped up in bed reading music. After being tied so long, his circulation had suffered and it was only with repeated applications of iratzes and other healing runes that he was starting to regain full use of his limbs. His arms were still too weak to hold the violin. So he read the music and day dreamed about playing it.

Will gathered up the pile beside him and moved it as he sat down. He didn't sit in the chair beside the bed but rather right beside him. He leaned against the headboard.

"That was sorted," Jem said nodding to the haphazard pile that Will had dumped across his knee.

"Now it is re-sorted. I am an expert librarian, it is better sorted now," Will said.

Jem laughed and picked up the pile. He put it off to the side before William Herondale, Master Librarian could touch it again and further confuse the sheets. Sometimes Will would chase a joke just for the fun of it and Jem really didn't want him to try and adjust his system.

He needn’t have worried, Will had no interest in it today. He sat beside Jem and said nothing for a long time. Jem did not push him. If he wanted to say something he would get to it in his own time. If he simply wanted company without the need to do or say anything, Jem was happy to provide that as well.

He looked back at his sheet and read over the beginning of the andante while he waited. Tessa was planning today. She was all bright flashes of inspiration wrapped up in long periods of determined focus. He hadn't a clue what she was doing, but he had harnessed all her unshakable attention to keep himself on task. Even with Will sitting beside him vibrating with unspoken emotions, her calm kept him from getting wrapped up in it.

Finally, Will reached out with a fisted hand and held it out over Jem's lap. Jem dropped his sheet of music and waited. Will's dramatics usually had a point but he liked to play out the entire story before he got to it. This time it was a silent story. He simply opened his hand and dropped a white and red object about as long as a finger onto Jem's knee.

Jem picked it up and grimaced at it. It was a tooth. Sharp and serrated along one edge and blood stained as though it had been gnawing on raw flesh just before it was removed. He turned it over in his hands in hopes he would be able to figure it out.

"What's this?" he asked.

"A tooth," Will said. His mood was unreadable.

"Thank you, I had fallen blind and lost my sense of touch during my convalescence, it is kind of you to point that out. Do you often bring your friends the blood soaked teeth of monsters?" Jem asked. Will sent him a sideways glance as though unsure if he was joking or not.

"Oh, yes, all my friends," Will said and it wasn't so much humour as bitterness. Jem reached over and squeezed his arm but didn't chase the subject.

"Why?" Jem asked him.

"It bit me," he said and pulled up his sleeve to show a new but fully healed scar on his forearm. It must have been a bloody mess when it had happened. It was a long jagged injury. So this is what had happened to Will the night of the party. Charlotte had said he had been found with Magnus after the alarm had gone up given Jem's state after the party.

"Was it the one you thought it was?" Jem asked.

"We find out tomorrow, Magnus will use this to raise it," Will said and he leaned back against the pillow he had stolen from Jem. He vibrated with energy. Manic but suppressed. He picked up the sharp, bloody tooth and played with it in his fingers like it were a coin. He walked it over his knuckles and tossed it and caught it without letting it slice his palm open. Magic tricks with demon teeth, Jem could see the advertisements for the show and the idea made him smile.

Jem sank back into Tessa's focus and fixed his piles of sheet music. Will lay beside him and played with the tooth while he stared at the ceiling. Having him close helped with Jem's strength. The parabatai rune allowed him to draw on Will's health to bolster his own. These afternoons after one of Jem's bad days were something of a ritual though usually Will read rather than tried to flip teeth without getting cut.

"I am unfathomably sorry," Will said very softly while Jem was trying to figure out the exact harmonies to fit into the melody on the page. If he had a quartet, what would it sound like?

"Whatever for?" Jem asked absently before he had fully processed the tone of voice. He shook himself loose of feelings that weren't his and turned to look down at Will.

"For leaving you at that hellish party," Will said.

"And I am sorry I left you to get half eaten by a demon while I was busy thinking about a girl," Jem said.

"At least she's a pretty girl," Will said.

"She is, isn't she?" Jem said smiling at his paper. This was not the sort of conversation he and Will had. Jem did not often allow himself the luxury of dwelling on thoughts about girls because he hadn't a chance of so much as courting one. Will made comments about women all the time but they had all come from his dictionary of hateful things to say and so Jem had always avoided the topic. He muffled his desire to talk about her hair or the how expressive her eyes were or how beautiful he found her hands. It was a comment not an invitation to wax poetic.

"Charlotte seems to believe that the partial spell has no effect on you," Will said.

Charlotte hadn't told Will. Jem had. As soon as he had seen him. Will had then gone on to accost Charlotte and demand every piece of the story Jem had been too weak to give him. He had described as much as he knew about what had happened but he had been vague on this one detail.

"She does believe that," Jem said.

"Is it true?" Will asked.

"No," Jem said.

It was Will's turn to wait. He waited until Jem told him. Will was not someone he could easily lie to and he needed this truth out. He needed someone outside of himself and Tessa to know what had happened, to know how close he had come. Will listened and said nothing. He collected information but did not say a word until Jem was finished.

“How much power does she have over you?” Will asked.

“Not much,” Jem said with a shrug as though it hadn’t been eating at him since he had woken. How much power did she have? Could she make him do things if she thought them at him? And if she could, would she?

He could feel her emotions but that gave him no sense of intention. When he stood there, with her in his arms at the window, it had seemed like a given. She was on his side. She was trustworthy and good. He had been sure. Now distance made him doubt.

“James?” Will asked and Jem pulled his attention around. Will looked worried and Jem had no idea what his own expression had been.

“You’ll watch over me?” Jem asked, “You’ll watch over me to be sure that I don’t become something else? Will you do that for me?”

“Of course I will,” Will said.

“Thank you,” Jem said and he reached out and waited for Will to take his hand. It was too much talking so close to such a bad bout of illness. He settled back against his pillow and held onto Will until he fell asleep again.

 


	23. Free

The next day, Jem had the violin out. He was sitting in bed which made it hard to play well but he had tuned it and was picking out tunes with his fingers rather than the bow. The door creaked open. Will appeared in the gap and came into the room. Silent and tall and older than he had been that morning. Jem couldn’t say what it was about him that made him seem older but it was true.

Will dropped the tooth on his bed cover and Jem leaned over to pick it up. It was cold and inert and sharp in his hand.

“Is it over?” he asked.

“Yes,” Will said then fell silent.

“Are you free of it?” Jem asked.

“Yes.”

Then without another word of explanation, Will walked away. Jem was strong enough to get up and chase him now but he didn’t. He let Will leave in silence and close the door without making a noise. He was left holding the tooth and wondering at Will and the secrets he didn’t tell. 


	24. Slug of a Man

****

“There is a missing piece of information that you need to be aware of,” Jem said. Keeping secrets was turning out to be more difficult than he had anticipated and the wrong things were getting buried. He wanted to keep Tessa out of as much of it as he could but they were hiding far too much.

Will sat beside him and stopped eating to look at him. It had only been two days but he was different. The calculated cruelties that Jem had only just started to notice were gone. In their place were tiny little calculated kindnesses that left Sophie goggling at him and Charlotte puzzled after he had left a room. He said nothing, explained nothing, he simply changed. It was slow and small. He wasn’t any more affectionate or any less prone to disappearing for hours at a time but he was no longer cruel.

“Yes?” Charlotte said. Henry sat across from her, eating peas and thinking about something else. Charlotte glanced at him as though expecting him to do or say something but he was just absently spooning peas into his mouth as he stared at a spot high on the wall above her head. Jem caught the little tilt of exasperation in her expression as she turned her undivided attention on him.

“It should be known that the party we went to was hosted by Benedict Lightwood,” Will said leaning into Jem as though he needed to protect him. Charlotte did not throw crockery at them though it looked like she was considering it. 

“The Lightwoods are hosting parties for criminals and fugitives and allowing magics to be used against Shadowhunters on their property? And the two of you knew that?” Charlotte asked.

They had already been lectured though neither really felt they had needed it. They had both suffered for the decision to go to the party. Jem's enchantment and Will's jagged scar were the lasting evidence of it. But then, Will had come out the other side with his curse broken so perhaps it wasn’t all bad. Whenever Jem thought of it like that, as a balancing act wherein his enchantment was the price for Will’s freedom, it seemed fairer. If he had been given the choice in those terms, he would have chosen this outcome.

At that thought he let his attention turn to Tessa. She had been thinking about him all day and realizing that was a distraction unlike any other. She was angry but he couldn’t shake the sense that it was on his behalf. Her planning and determination was about him. Whatever she had spent days working on had something to do with him. He felt his lip pull toward a smile just thinking about it and forced it back down becase Charlotte looked prepared to revisit her tirade. Attending the ball without telling anyone where they were going was, Jem had to agree, a reckless and poorly thought out thing to do. They should have told her this detail when she’d first told them off but her anger had already been at a fever pitch. Now it was heating back up again.

Rumours among the Enclave were that Benedict was going to challenge Charlotte for the Institute and that he was likely to win it. Jem could see thoughts chase themselves over Charlotte’s face. Her anger disappeared as surprise and horror and something like triumph ran over her features before her composure settled back into place.

“We can take this to the Consul, it would guarantee that we don’t loose the Institute to that slug of a man,” Charlotte said.

Will snorted, “Slug of a man. Can you imagine a slug wearing Benedict’s starched collar? And his family ring?”

“They wouldn’t stay in place as slugs don’t have necks, nor fingers” Henry mused and Will let out a real laugh. The attention in the room turned to him briefly because it wasn’t a contrivance, it was a bright happy sound. Jem smiled along with it.

“Back to the matter at hand, please,” Charlotte said tightening her lips against the smile that was pulling at the corner of her lips.

“We can’t attack Benedict directly,” Will said still smiling over slugs. The humour fell away from his face as he spoke. “Gabriel, baby slug that he may be, is loyal and knows what happened to Jem. It won’t stop Benedict from being barred from running an Institute and perhaps even being removed from the Clave altogether but Gabriel could still announce what happened. You can’t risk it.”

Charlotte sat back in her chair and considered her dinner. Finally she said, “There is more than one way to skin a slug.”

Will spit his drink into his dinner with the force of his laugh which set Henry off as well. Jem stared at them a moment but then Henry made a face that must have been intended to be slug like. He started to laugh as well. It was that moment that Jessamine chose to walk into the room as they were all laughing over their plates .

“My headache is back,” she said and then spun and flounced away.


	25. Enclave Meeting

The debate over how to talk about the Lightwoods was being brought up at every meal Jessamine wasn't at and repeatedly in between as well. Jessie seemed to be avoiding them all which made keeping secrets from her even easier than it would otherwise have been. They had decided over breakfast that the issue would be left to lie during the meeting that was to be held that afternoon.

Though held in the Gard hall, it was just an enclave meeting and hardly filled the first three rows of the massive space. The normal minutes were discussed. Reports from each Institute given in, a request for a study of the strength of the warding over the Isle of Skye suggested and approved.

It was tedious and dull and Will did not make a single snide comment throughout it. Jem caught some of the little facial expressions that usually preceded them. Will was choosing to keep his mouth shut. It made Jem smile even as he missed the whispered distractions. He had no information as to the shape of Will's curse or the method of its breaking but he was glad to have it gone.

Gabriel Lightwood gave Jem a sharp look as the Consul opened the floor to issues, grievances and suggestions that needed to be undertook. As Benedict said nothing, Jem thought he understood it. They both held something destructive. If either of them brought it out, the other would have a counter.

Jem was suddenly aware that his life was on the line.

It had been a vague political concept up to that moment. His existence was considered a threat to the Clave and he could be executed for that. This was the room where that trial would be held. Jem closed his eyes for a moment and was startled back into the world by Will's flash of alarm - one of the few reliable emotions to come through the parabatai bond - and the thud of a door.

He looked up to see an automaton lumbering down the steps. It still wore Lightwood livery as they had at the party. Everyone was on their feet, Jem included, and weapons were drawn. No one was heavily armed but the thing was alone, it should have been an easy battle. Instead, they held back and waited. The explosion in the Silent City was far from forgotten and no one wanted to set it off.

It stopped high above them on the stairs.

"We seek a new order," the thing started in it's grinding voice and there was a sputtering and then it started over, "We seek a new order. Justice and honour and equality. There is no space for the betrayers among us. We seek a new order and you Benedict Lightwood will not be in it. You have betrayed your own and so shall you never be allowed to betray our cause in kind."

The thing cut off and Benedict yelled something about lying and though no one moved, the mood had switched from ready to chaotic. Benedict was one of their own. Respected and with allies throughout the Clave. He was livid. Jem could see that from across the room and Gabriel beside him was alarmed. There was a similarity between their faces but something about Benedict's manic energy made him seem utterly different from his son.

The automaton groaned again and then began to speak but this time it was not its own grinding voice but a fuzzy reproduction of human conversation. It was like a phonograph but clearer, it was possible to pick out the individual voices.

Benedict and Mortmain, Jem had to stretch his memory to match his voice to the one he had heard at the party but it was definitely the same voice. He glanced at Will who nodded. His memory was better, if he said it was, then it was.

"What is the meaning of this?" Benedict was standing and yelling at the thing.

"The alliance is over," The automaton said, "You no longer have a place in our new order."

The automaton fell still and silent. Jem glanced at Will again unsure of what to expect next. Was this some sort of punishment on Benedict for allowing the two of them to make it into the party? Or for allowing Jem to escape. Jem wondered how deeply Mortmain was involved in the things that the Gray siblings were doing and the reverse.

The automaton turned to lumber away. There was a yell and a few things happened at once. There was a flurry of activity around Benedict Lightwood as the Clave tried to decide whether not he needed to be detained. Someone else made an attack on the automaton.

Jem started moving. He wasn't sure what triggered the explosions but it hardly seemed like a good idea to try and chop the thing to pieces with a sword. He was halfway up the stairs with Will behind him when Gabriel caught his arm. The three of them paused for a moment.

Gabriel glanced back at Benedict and waited for his next angry yell about lies before he called out a command in some demonic language. It was a single word and Jem missed which one or even which dialect it was. The automaton ground to a halt and ceased to move at all. Gabriel stared at it for a few moments as though trying to be sure that it had worked.

"Did you do this?" Jem asked.

"Yes," Gabriel said.

"Neatly done, here I thought you were daddy's little pet. Ruthless turning on him like that," Will said only halfway paying attention to them. He was watching the Shadowhunters reduce the disabled automaton to scrap metal.

"Gabriel is very loyal," Gabriel said. Jem looked at Gabriel a little more closely. He looked like Gabriel in every detail. But he was very calm and gave Jem a little smile that Gabriel never would have.

"Where's the real Gabriel?" Jem asked and that pulled Will's attention back around. His eyes were wide and startled and Jem put a hand up to keep him from doing or saying something to expose her.

"I tied him up and left him in a closet. It wasn't easy, he's a hell of a fighter. I ended up having to use Will because I don't have any other Shadowhunter changes. You people are much much stronger than mundanes," she said. Tessa. He was looking at Gabriel and talking to Tessa.

"Does Gabriel think I beat him up and put him in a closet?" Will asked and his hostility broke for a moment of humour.

"No, I managed to get a bag over his head when I was still in a mundane body. Then he nearly killed me without being able to see me. He never saw anything but Gregory Brent and he's been dead for six years so it isn't going to lead back to you," she said.

"Fantastic," Will sneered.

"You're giddy," Jem said.

"I'm really not," Will said turning back to look at the arguments surrounding Benedict which Charlotte was doing an impressive job of turning to her advantage. Benedict needed to be proven innocent and he needed to be detained until that innocence could be ascertained. She made it sound like she knew that he would be found innocent of all wrongdoing but they needed to be careful. It was masterfully done.

It was Tessa who was giddy. Her smile was childlike and gleeful on Gabriel's face for a moment before she fell back into character. Before she turned to go join the argument and play the proper role, she squeezed Jem's hand. In the commotion no one noticed it. Not even Will. Then Tessa was gone, she slipped back down into being Gabriel. Angry and purposeful with just the right amount of suppressed anxiety. It was impossible to tell that it wasn't the true Gabriel striding across the room.

"Why would she do that?" Jem asked.

"Either Benedict really did cross the Magister or she was really angry about that party," Will said.

Jem let Will lead the way over to Charlotte to take up their places at her back as unwavering support. Jem caught one more look from Tessa before she threw up her arms and stomped out of the Gard hall, probably to go let Gabriel out of whichever closet she had locked him in. She gave him a look that was bright and triumphant and then she was gone.

  



	26. A Visit

There was a month of silence. She had stomped out of the Gard hall and disappeared again.

Benedict Lightwood was put on trial and once there were people looking into his finances and his friends and even himself, it became immediately evident that he was not innocent. He had been locked up in the Silent City and a surly Gabriel had gone to his brother in Madrid. That it hadn't been Gabriel at the Gard Hall that day was a secret that stayed secret. Jem had no idea how she managed that but it must have taken multiple memory charms or some very elaborate threats.

Tessa was there in his head and it drove him a little mad not to have a way to contact her. She was always determined but under that she sad and angry more often than she was anything else. Her moods tugged on his and his temper was shorter than it should have been. He worked harder at keeping his moods even and Will's new found tendency not to try and infuriate everyone in a ten mile radius helped. Sometimes he pretended that if he tried hard enough that he could send out bits of his own good moods to help balance out hers. She gave him no proof that it worked but he remembered that flash of relief when she'd realized he was recovering and kept trying.

He had no warning before the owl showed up on his window sill. The shock of seeing her again left him too dumbfounded to open the window for her for a long moment. It was raining and when she swooped in and landed on the floor she had to shake water out of her feathers. He grinned at her. She disappeared behind his screen, leaving little wet marks across the carpet on her way there.

She came out, not wearing pajamas, just wearing his robe. He was crossing the room to her before he registered how little she was dressed. He blushed just enough that she had to notice but then she was close enough to touch. His fingers found her hair. Just a strand of it that he lifted and smoothed back into place. It was improper. It was too much. The emotion that washed out of her and into him was deeply conflicted and he stepped back.

"Hello," he said.

"How are you?" she asked.

"Quite well," he said like they were acquaintances at a dinner party. Like she wasn’t barely dressed and

"You're sure? The spell hasn’t been bothering you?" she asked.

"It is sometimes odd, that's all. There’s nothing for you to worry about. I worry about you, tell me what’s been wrong," he said.

"I have a piece of information for you," she said ignoring the request though he felt her register it. It felt something like a stab of loneliness. He took a step back from her and smoothed his face out into something serious. It wasn't a social call and he needed to accept that.

That she hadn't come just to visit made his chest tighten. She never did. He nodded at her to tell her to go on but he didn't say anything. If he tried he was afraid something lonely and desperate was going to come out. He was afraid he would start pleading with her to stay this time. He didn't want to beg her to stay but he wanted it. Wanted to know the thoughts that went with these feelings. He wanted to know her secrets but he didn't want to have to beg for them.

"There are warlocks in White Chapel. Well, there are lots of warlocks in White Chapel. Most of them are lovely or at least not awful. These two are awful. They're sisters and they've been doing something with mundanes, collecting up body parts and people to be turned into body parts. It has something to do with new automaton designs but I don't know what exactly. I don't know how to stop them. This is what you do, right?" she said.

"Are you asking me or the Clave?" he asked.

"I'm asking you as a Shadowhunter that I trust," she said looking up at him. His attempt at distance and nonchalance crumbled. He was a master at staying calm and keeping his emotions in check but he couldn't stay angry. Not at Will, not at her.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

"Take it to whoever you can to make it stop," she said. She looked down and her expression crumpled into something frustrated. A familiar emotion ran through him. She had been struggling with this for more than a week. The same angry, miserable, disgust had been there in his mind for days. The sweeps of helplessness suddenly made sense. She knew what was happening but didn't have the power to stop it.

He put his hands on her shoulders and she looked back up at him. Her emotions quieted. That was all it took. She was calmer just because he was touching her.

"You trust me," he said.

"Of course I do," she said.

He leaned in and put his forehead against hers. A pang of emotion that might have been hers or might have been his own ran through his chest. Her skin was warm and he could see his hair resting against hers out of the corner of his eye.

"Can you arrange some evidence for us to find?" he asked.

"Yes," she said after a moment of consideration.

"Then yes," he said, "We can do something to make it stop. This is our mandate. We protect people."

He waited for her to be the one to step back because she always pulled away first but she didn't move. His hands came up to cup her face as she explained it. She explained what she knew, gave him names and places. Their faces were close together and he could feel her pulse under his hand where it rested against her neck. She didn't pull away and she didn't lean in. She just stayed frozen. 

A knock at the door shattered it. One moment she was right there, close enough to kiss if he ever got brave enough to try, and the next she was gone. Her whisper broke off in midsentence and the robe was a puddle on the floor. The cat struggled out from under it and disappeared under his bed.

He glowered at the door and then smoothed that expression off his face before he went to open the door. Sophie was standing in the hall and he gave her a smile as she came in and did the things she did in the evening. Fresh water for him to wash with, his laundry hung up, it took a long time. He kept up a little bit of easy conversation as she put his robe away. He had to resist the urge to tell her to leave when she checked the grate to see if the fireplace needed swept. Jem felt a twinge of guilt for hurrying her out. Sometimes they had little conversations when he was there and she was doing the chores, it was nice but tonight he had all but shuffled her out the door.

Tessa had a bit of dust on her whiskers when she emerged from beneath the bed. He reached down and brushed it off, forgetting for a moment that she was a person and not a cat. She meowed at him and he pet her head again. She didn't change back. He sat down on the floor with her and she sat on his knee and purred at him. Whatever nerves or social restrictions made touching her as a human girl so fraught were gone when she was a cat.

She was warm and soft and shed on his jacket like any other cat might. He leaned against the bed and she rubbed her face against his fingers. She curled up on his chest and rubbed her face into his neck. It took him until that moment to understand why she was so affectionate. She was upset and wanted some comfort. She couldn't ask for it as a person but her inhibitions were different as a cat. She didn’t just stay when he touched her. She pressed into his hands. She purred and got closer.

Her body was small enough that he could lift her and tuck her in a little closer. He sat up on the bed rather down on the floor. She purred and he smiled and tried to be as comforting as he could be to a cat. He talked to her and held her and couldn't quite forget that she was still a person even if she was small enough to fit into the crook of his neck. It was late and he was half asleep when she finally pulled away from him and instead of a half asleep cat an owl stood on his bed.

He pet her wing and she ruffled her feathers at him. He knew nothing about owl body language but he took it as affectionate. She hopped up onto the window sill and gave him an inscrutable look before she launched herself out into the dark. He didn't feel so bad about watching her go this time. It felt less like an ending and more like something just beginning.

He took his bit of evidence about the location of the bodies and went to find Will so they could fabricate a way of telling Charlotte without mentioning Tessa's name.

Later, while he was sitting with Will, planning out a patrol path that would put them in the right area with the least chance of being seen by the wrong people, she became herself again. He smiled at the papers in front of him as her emotions came back to him. She was calmer than she had been in a long time. Will noticed the smile and raised his eyebrows but Jem just waved it away and went back to work. 


	27. The Laboratory

The building was abandoned, they'd swept it from top to bottom and found nothing. Jem had a moment of doubt. Perhaps she had sent them to the wrong place but he shook the thought away. They had found the mutilated bodies where she said they would be and they had traced the evidence back here independent of her information. This was the right place.

"Lovely house, I really love what they’ve done with the colours," Will said when they all stood together in the foyer.  The hallway was narrow and foyer was a bit of an ostentatious label for the space. Will, Henry and Thomas were arranged in a loose ring and they all looked too big to fit in the space. Henry and Will were too tall and Thomas too broad and they were bristling with weapons though the house had nothing that seemed to need fighting.

"There hasn't been anyone here in a long time," Jem said.

Henry tilted his head and looked at the floor. Jem followed his gaze but he was probably thinking about how the grime on the wood was arranged in patterns like something mathematical. Jem had a last look around as though it would somehow have changed. He had been almost been looking forward to the fight. It felt like a chance to lash out at the people who had been a part of tying him to a chair and binding him to Tessa.

He was also buzzing with yin fen. The dose hadn't been any larger than he usually took for a battle but it burned through his veins. He was all energy and it was starting to feel like a kind of madness. The last time he had felt like this had been an accidental double dosage back when he was 14.

He had been upping the amount for years, incrementally more each fight so that he could keep up with Will and the others. It had never felt like this. He felt like was going to do something erratic just because he had too much energy. At that moment, watching Henry watch the floor, he was physically restraining himself from bouncing on his toes like an excited child.

"There must be a cellar," Henry said in a faraway voice.

"There wasn't an entrance," Will said.

"Entrances can be hidden," Henry said and he turned and headed back down the hall. Will stared after him and then hurried to catch up. They followed him back down to the kitchen where he looked around and then started knocking his heels against the floor. He very carefully and seriously tapped his way across the scratched wood like a slow motion jig. Jem stared for a moment, his over active senses momentarily overwhelmed by the weirdness of it before he joined in. Thomas found the hollow spot near the stove and a few more minutes of searching turned up a latch hidden in a knot hole and they pulled up a panel of flooring to see a hole in the floor.

"You always take me to such lovely places," Will said to no on in particular. There was a smell of mold and decay wafting up out of the pit and Jem grimaced at it. Putrid and sickly sweet and vaguely chemical.

"Shall we?" he said.

Will shrugged and led the way down into the dark. Jem followed him with his blade drawn but dark. They couldn't possibly still have the element of surprise after the dance routine in the kitchen but it didn't seem prudent to light up his seraph blade yet. They stepped down into a short hallway that opened up into a dimly lit but cavernous space that must have spread beneath the entire block. There was another set of stairs down to the floor but Jem paused at the top to take it all in.

The rows of tables, the piles of machinery and the bodies. The place smelled of death and decay and motor oil. Heads, where they were still attached, lolled off the edges of tables and the bodies were cleaved open though the dim light made picking out details within the gaping chest cavities impossible. Jem's stomach churned. This was what they were looking for and it was everything Tessa had said it was and so much worse.

"Today just keeps improving, I am never taking party recommendations from an owl again," Will muttered in his ear and Jem almost smiled in spite of the sight.

They prowled down the stairs and fanned out across the floor. Jem held the blade in both hands so he could hopefully get enough power to slash through metal if it came to it. When they reached the far wall after having a closer look at the horrors on the tables but without finding any dangers or even anything of note, they stopped and regrouped. Abandoned was not what they had been expecting.

They stood in front of a small door and Jem turned to look at it. Will raised his eyebrows and shrugged so Jem grabbed the handle and pushed it open. It swung inward and this time he led with Will just behind him. It was pitch black but the light from the large room illuminated the mouth of a narrow hallway. Jem moved into the darkness slowly. He murmured the name of his blade and it blazed to life in his hands, pushing back the shadows.

When the thing came barreling out the dark he ducked and slashed. He saw the lose of light where the blade bit into the arm of the creature throwing sparks bright enough to nearly blind him. It screeched and spun on him as he slammed his shoulders back against the wall to make room to swing again. In the light he could see that it was one of the warlocks from the party, she wore a yellow dress and had her long clawed hands out on full display. She swung her attention back and forth past him as blue sparks built at her finger tips, she was bleeding from a smoldering wound on her forearm.

He waited for her to move, to give him an opening to hit something other than her arms but she just stared at him, her face even more ghastly in the light of the blue sparks. Her eyes darted back and forth and Jem realized that she couldn't see him. She was looking right at him but couldn't see him.

"Jem?" Will yelled and the warlock turned to fling the sparks she had built up at him. He had to dodge to the side and backpedal away from the barrage. He was swearing and kept calling Jem's name. The hallway was too narrow but with her attention on Will, Jem could duck into the space behind her. She seemed to have forgotten he existed. He moved fast slashing out in a wide arc that sent her head spiraling away and her body falling as it fountained blood.

"What the hell happened?" Will asked.

"There are two of them," Jem said though he knew that wasn't the question. He wheeled around to look into the silent dark of the hallway. His blade still shone brightly but the blood on it made the light patchy. He inched into the darkness, leaving Will no choice but to stop asking questions and follow him. He wanted them both dead. He wanted to be sure they were never going to touch a single person ever again, not the mutilated mundanes on the tables out there, not himself, not Tessa.

The yin fen couldn't alter his moods as drastically as it might in a mundane addict but he wasn’t perfectly immune. He did not find himself spiraling into mania as it took hold but it did push his emotions higher. His anger burned hotter but so too would his shame or his heartbreak or his sadness when those raised their heads. In that moment, he was all anger. Deeper in the hallway it got hotter and damper and started to feel more like a tunnel.

"On our way to hell," Will muttered in a singsong from behind him and the light off his seraph blade was casting Jem's shadow into something huge and flickering against the walls.

The attack came from above and it was not a woman in a dress, it was bigger than that with horns and too many limbs. Something sharp bit into Jem's shoulder as he fell and he heard his own scream from a distance.  He was slashing with his blade but it was a frenzy of defense, not a true attack.

He was aware of Will, doing much the same thing and though their blades were doing damage it was damage to the things clawed arms, not anywhere that would hurt it. Ichor was dripping from its wounds and the blade in his hand was flickering as the light went out.

He heard Will swear just before the light failed entirely. The claws kept coming and Jem finally managed to roll away from them. Henry was in the mouth of the tunnel, another blade blazing and an attack raging against the demon's flank but it had thick scales even a seraph blade couldn't chop through. It was enough to keep it distracted so it couldn’t actually tear Jem and Will apart as much as it wanted to.

Jem was caught up against the wall again but Thomas landed a good blow with a throwing knife and the thing raised it’s horned head to roar. It gave Jem enough time to pull himself to his feet and as far out of the reach of its claws as he could get. He stumbled but got his hand on another blade. 

Will was yelling for him. He was still under the demon as it swung between trying to fend off Henry's attacks and trying to remove pieces from Will's body. It was outnumbered but determined to take at least one of them with it before it died. Will held out a hand and Jem threw his blade toward Will. It got caught by the thing’s tail and knocked aside. They both swore as Will had to roll out of reach again. Will was the only one close enough to it to land a killing blow but he couldn't get any of his other weapons out  without dropping his defenses and getting himself killed.

An alarm system started to blare. A cacophony of bells.

It came from deeper down the tunnel and the bells were followed by a screech of metal on metal. The demon hissed and Jem took the distraction to slide his last weapon along the floor to where Will could grab it. Jem couldn't see what happened, the blade was runed, not seraph and didn't light up as Will moved.

He couldn’t see but he heard it as the demon went from hissing to shrieking before that too cut off. Someone got a witchlight out and Jem saw that Henry had sliced it's throat once Will had gotten the blade into its belly. It twitched and was collapsing in on itself like a burning piece of paper. Curling and blacking and disappearing. Jem watched it happen. He could live a hundred years and never get used to that sight.

Will was covered in ichor. It coated his face and dripped down his shirt, sizzling dully as he tried to wipe it away from his skin. Jem came to crouch down beside him and attempt to wash the worst of it away with a cloth from his pocket. Will reached out and grabbed his arm and he winced as pain laced up his back. He had forgotten the injury in the haze of the battle.

"What about the other warlock?" Will asked.

"I think this is the other warlock," Henry said poking the corpse with his foot. 

"It's a terrible colour for her complexion," Jem said. He inhaled against the pain of his throbbing arm. He needed an iratze but the whirring of the alarm was grinding into his nerves faster than the pain was. Something was still coming. Will, his face mostly clear and not entirely burned, laughed. He kicked at the taffeta husk of the demon, causing the remains of it to scatter across the floor. Gone. Jem looked down the tunnel into the dark where the sound was still blaring. It echoed up the rock walls and into his skull.

"Do we go see what it is?" Thomas asked. He had been behind Henry for most of the battle, but at some point he'd caught a claw across the back of his arm and it was bleeding almost black in the white blue like of the witchstone.

"Probably should," Will said and Jem used his good arm to pull him to his feet. The sound of something down the tunnel pulled all their attention. Henry had his blade drawn and Will pulled his last one free as well. Jem was left standing unarmed until Thomas handed him a thin sword that was light enough to wield one handed.

And out of the dark came a cat.

Orange and black and familiar. Everyone froze and she paused in the light of the witchstone with her eyes squinted nearly shut and then she dashed past them. She launched herself off the gown and darted between Thomas’s feet making him jump backwards in surprise.

"I think we run," Will said before Jem could.

"We take advice from cats now?" Henry asked.

"Yes," Jem said when he heard a thud farther down in the dark. The ringing alarm shut off and he said again with more emphasis, "Yes."

He turned and he and Will pushed the other two out of the dark ahead of them.


	28. Make it Right

Out in the lab, she was gone. No cat. It wasn't until they reached the stairs that Jem caught sight of her. She was ahead of them, dashing for the door. A girl now, wearing a stolen dress that must have come from a pile of discarded clothing from the dead, she was there for only a flash. Jem picked up speed even though his energy was failing because he could feel her anxiety tripping through him. She was scared and under that there was guilt. 

He hit the street only moments after she did and she was running across the empty road to pound on the door of the house across the way. She looked thinner than she was and her dress was pale and tattered and too large. She looked like an urchin, someone who belonged on a street like this.

"Fire!" she yelled and pounded again before running for the next house.

"What is going on?" Jem caught her arm and spun her back towards him. Her face held all the panic he could feel in his chest and he forced his expression to be calm. He didn’t know if his emotions would feed hers but he knew that he could calm her down.

"I set them all to explode. I couldn't think of another way to destroy them but I don't know if the cavern is strong enough," she said, "I didn't think. If the street collapses, all these people are going to die. There's so many people in these houses."

The people from the house she had already awoken were trickling out into the street and Will and Henry pushed through them. Will looked furious and Henry confused.

"Who are you?" Henry asked.

"Cat girl," Will said.

Jem was surprised Henry didn't recognize her but then, he had probably never gone down to the Silent City to see her questioned or talk to her himself. Charlotte had, Will had, but Henry would have stayed home and theorized on shapeshifting instead. He had probably never seen her face.

"I set them all to explode. They were building automatons. They all have that fail-safe, they can all be detonated. I thought it would be better to have every single one of them gone. They were putting human hearts inside them and using muscles along with the wires. They're awful," her words were tumbling out.

Jem had never seen her so upset, had never felt her emotions so unchecked even during the casting of the binding spell. He set himself between her and the others but stopped short of holding her though he could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric where he still held her arm.

The crowd was milling and the rumour of fire spreading down the block. She stopped talking, put her hands together and muttered a spell. Smoke poured from between her fingers and she took a deep breath and blew on it like a child with a handful of fresh snow. The smoke plumed up into the air, almost invisible in the dark but the smell of it was in the air now.

"We have to make them all leave, there are five minutes. Five minutes before they all explode and I don't know if the street will collapse," she said. "I didn't think. I'm so sorry."

"We'll get them out," Jem said to her.

Will looked annoyed at the prospect of taking orders from the girl but he only rolled his eyes once before he rolled up his sleeve and removed his glamour. He grabbed Jem, and wrenched him forward and drew a hasty iratze on the side of his neck. With a last dark look at Tessa, he hurried off down the street to knock on the next door and start yelling about fire.

Jem had to do the same with the glamour though Thomas was already banging on doors and Henry wasn't far behind. The two of them hadn't been doing the street sweep before they approached the house, they hadn't needed glamours. The street was milling with people and Tessa had released enough smoke to keep them all nervous though the lack of flames was starting to distract people.

The first explosion could have been thunder. It was distant and little more than a thud. Then the sound picked up, like firecrackers at a New Year’s celebration back in Shanghai. Jem could feel it in his feet. The vibrations shaking the ground. People in the crowd started to panic. Jem flattened himself against a wall and Tessa appeared at his side. He scanned the dark busy space for Will and the others and caught sight of Henry's hair beneath a street lamp but not the others. Will was still out there, he knew that, but he didn't know where.

Tessa's dread pushed against his own over active emotions as she waited to see if the street would collapse. It would swallow the crowd down into a hell of exploding machinery. With no one around paying attention, he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his chest. She knotted a hand in the fabric of his jacket but didn't relax. They were both watching the source of the thuds which rattled the windows in the house above them.

A crack snaked down between the stones on the street and there was a sound of breaking glass not too far away but nothing fell in. Tessa stared at the crack. Someone, the last of the people from the houses, tore by them but their foot steps were the only sound. Jem released her and she inched toward the street as though unsure if it were truly over.

Will approached her from some dark corner, looking furious. She snapped her attention up to him. Wary but not truly frightened of him. Will glowered and she raised her chin and it was almost challenging. She was small and tattered in front of him and Jem hurried across the street to put himself between them if he needed to.

"Is that the last of them? The metal monstrosities?" Will growled at her. Hostile and confrontational and intentionally scary. This was Will in a way he hadn't been since the curse had been taken from him. Jem wanted to snap at him to stop behaving like that but Tessa still wasn't scared so he didn’t add to the argument.

"Almost," she said.

"What are you doing? First, Lightwood and now this," he asked with a wave of his hand at the cracked cobblestone road.

"Repairing the damage," she said.

"Damage that you helped create," Will's voice was low.

"Yes," she said and she considered him for a moment before she added in a voice as low but far less hostile than his, "I was raised my entire life to believe in a very specific type of right and wrong. I've come to doubt it. I can't fix it all but what I can improve, I will."

Will seemed at a loss of words at that. He was staring at her, his eyes looked black in the darkness and his face was still streaked with the last of the ichor from the fight. He didn't look any kinder but he didn't yell or threaten. The crowd was pulling back in, curiosity outweighing self preservation as it always did with mundanes. She looked at them and then back to Jem and Will.

Then she was gone. She disappeared into her stolen ragged dress and then struggled out of it in her owl form before taking off, She launched off the street between them in a whoosh of wings and the effort of getting airborne was obvious before she got high enough to disappear into the dark. Will stared after her with his head tilted back.

"Do we go down there and see what we can find in the lab?" Jem asked.

"Hell," Will said with a sigh, "No, we go home and get proper iratzes on your arm and we check to see if I lost my kidneys or anything important to those claws."

They found Thomas and Henry and made it back to the carriage. Thomas was well enough to drive and the other three collapsed inside. They were going to get blood and ichor all over the seats but no one could find enough energy to care. Will and Jem leaned together. Will wiping at the ichor on his jacket half-heartedly and Jem favouring his partly healed shoulder. Will had gashes across his stomach but though they were going to scar pretty dramatically, they hadn't gone deep enough to get at anything important. He hadn't lost a kidney or anything else. Jem had drawn an iratze and Will had pretended he didn’t need it.

They tumbled out of the carriage onto the Institute steps, filthy and bloody and exhausted. Charlotte met them on the stairs looking so clean and neat that she seemed out of place. It was strangely impossible after a battle to come home and find the world as calm as it had been before. Her hair was done up neatly and her expression was calm and kind but there was a warning in it.

"What's wrong?" Jem asked.

"Will," Charlotte said and Will raised his eyebrows at her but didn't say anything. He was more injured than he had been letting on and Jem was about to interject and demand the Silent Brothers be called when someone dashed out into the light behind Charlotte.

A girl.

A strange girl.

Young, with her black hair worn down and her plain traveling dress in a light blue that set off her eyes. She came too a stop beside Charlotte and looked down the steps. She stood in the light, only a little taller than Charlotte herself, with all the bearing of a queen. She could have been Will's sister.

No, she was Will's sister.

Jem felt extraordinarily stupid for having forgotten that she existed. Will had told him the story, of the sister who died and the one he had left behind. Her name wouldn't come for a long time before his mind supplied: Cecily.

She was staring at them in horror. Jem glanced sideways at Will and Henry and even Thomas by the horses. They were bloody and torn and must have smelled like demons and smoke and decay.. Her eyes were wide, her face a mask. She was pretty and trying very hard not to scream or faint.

"Cece?" Will asked dumbfounded. If she was horrified, it wasn't any less than he was.

"Gwilym," she said and then she flung herself down the stair and wrapped her arms around his neck as he staggered. Jem halfway caught him to keep him from tumbling backwards down the stairs.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I came to train as a Shadowhunter," she said and her voice came out with only the tiniest bit of a waver in it. Jem imagined it hadn't occurred to her to doubt that plan until she saw them bloodied and filthy but now she was second guessing herself. It only lasted a moment, her voice was strong and determined when she said, "Just like you."


	29. Calm

Jem stayed with Will as they were both properly bandaged and iratzed. Then he sat with Cecily and Will as Will tried to convince her to go back to Wales. Jem wasn't surprised to find Cecily as stubborn as Will was. Flat out refusing over and over to listen to a single one of his arguments. Jem had kicked Will under the table more than once when he'd skirted too close to being mean as he got more frustrated. Each time Will had inhaled deeply and started again. 

They'd finally given up the conversation as the night wore on. Will was still fuming after Sophie had taken Cecily off to find a bed and a nightgown. He watched the door she had disappeared through with an unreadable expression on his face. Anger but also something more like horror. Like having his sister come to visit was akin to waking up beside a slime demon.

"Admit it, it's nice to see her," Jem said.

"Not here, not like this," Will had said and Jem had abandoned him to his dark mood and gone off to collapse into bed.

His room was warm and made up and he took a moment in the doorway to say a prayer of thanks to Sophie for existing. He kicked off his shoes and left them on the floor. He had change into a proper jacket before being properly introduced to Cecily and his gore soaked gear had been taken away. Now he tossed that jacket over a chair and considered just collapsing into bed as he was. His shoulder was healed but he was weaker than he wanted to be and getting undressed seemed far too much work.

"How are you?" a voice asked and he jumped as he spun around to face her. Tessa was wearing his pajamas again and had braided her hair down over her shoulder though the ends swung loose. She was standing in his room like it was perfectly normal.

"I think she opened the window to get out the smell of the demon blood but it was getting cold so I closed it,” Tessa said when she followed his gaze to the window. His expression must have been baffled because she started to look uncomfortable and said, “I didn't mean to intrude. I'll go,"

"No, don't go, you surprised me. I am glad that you’re here. I meant it when I said you are always welcome here," he said crossing the room to stand closer to her but stopping shy of touching her.

She smiled at that led him over to the chairs by the little table. She perched on the edge of it. She swung between perfect manners and these moments of childlike behaviour that were so endearing. Thoughts of falling into bed fled and he came to sit down across from her. She was unhurt and he was surprised to find that seeing her in his clothes didn't seem strange or unusual anymore. It still made breathing slightly harder than it needed to be but it made him smile.

"They're both dead," Tessa said. Her emotions, when they weren't in turmoil, were becoming background noise in his mind and he had to think about them and untangle them from his own to make sense of her. She was calm. Truly as calm as she appeared, maybe even a little bit satisfied.

"I know," he said.

"You would as you were there, I suppose," she said with a bit of a smile, it wasn’t much of a joke but she so rarely tried for humour that his imagination caught on it.

"I was and I've got the scars to prove it," he said.

"Is it bad?" she asked the joking fading away in a rush of concern.

"No, already healed," he said.

"You should rest," she said.

"Very well," he said needing to spin the joking out, to hold onto this calm, friendly feeling before anything could come and sweep it away.

He got up and went to sit on the bed instead. He leaned up against the headboard and slouched down. Her mouth quirked into a half smile. She got up and hesitate by the bedside before she climbed up beside him. She stepped up and over his knees and dropped herself down on the other half of the bed. His issues with breathing all came back as she settled herself in.

She didn't sit up, she lay down with her head on the pillow. She was stretched out beside him, lying on her side and facing him. The pajamas were loose and fell into the curves of her body so his eyes could trace the contours of it from her shoulder to her bare feet. He had lost the ability to speak so he slid down and lay down facing her.

She smiled but kept silent. Jem reached out and picked up a piece of her hair and ran it between his fingers. There wasn't a lot of space between them but this was the only point of contact, his fingers, her hair. She was quiet but he was paying close attention to her emotions in case he did something she didn't like.

She was happy but a little unsure, like she was waiting for him to tell her to get out. He got a little bolder instead, running his fingers through her hair from her temple to her unraveling braid and got a little trill of happiness to answer it. He smiled and did it again. She got closer. He couldn't really feel her move but there was less space. Maybe he had moved.

Jem ran his hand over her hair and somehow she was cuddling into his chest. She kept her head down, her cheek against his shoulder, her own shoulders tight and he fear of rejection rolling off her in waves. He wrapped his arms around her and kept petting her hair until the fear was gone and she relaxed.

Her fingers traced little patterns on his shoulder and he realized he shirt he wore was thin enough that she could see the iratze and the red of the forming scar below it. It still ached a little and he really should have had more yin fen because his weakness was slowing down the iratze but he wanted her close more than he wanted the pain gone.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said.

“I sent you there, you wouldn’t have been there if not for me, you were almost killed,” she said.

“I saw that laboratory. If we hadn’t gone, if you hadn’t told us where to find it, there would be many more people dead,” Jem said. He looked down at her but all he could see was her hair. He didn’t quite kiss her but did let his lips press against the strands and felt the wash of warmth as she cuddled in a little closer.

“Thank you for believing me,” she said.

“Thank you for trusting me,” he said.

She was pressed up against his chest and he was aware of her heart rate and every line of her body. She was calmer than he had ever known her to be and he let that feeling be his only one. He let worries about Will, the pain in his joints, the ache in his shoulder, his questions about the future all fade into that calm.

Her emotions quieted and pulled his down with them. It was like sinking down as they smoothed out in his head. The sense of her faded until she was just a whisper of her in his head. Her breathing was different. Her heart rate was slower.

She had fallen asleep.

Jem stopped himself from laughing because that would have woken her. Instead he adjusted her until he was cradling her just as close but a little bit more comfortably. He set his chin against the top of her head and hummed little bits of music to himself until his heart rate could settle down and meet hers and he dozed off as well.


	30. Magic

  
In the morning, Jem was alone. His window was cracked open where she must have snuck out. She'd left his pajamas neatly folded at the foot of his bed and his robe was tucked around him like a blanket. A little slip of paper, a receipt he had left on his stand from a music shop where he had bought rosin, had the words, "Thank you," written on it in neat looping handwriting. He wasn't sure what she was thanking him for but as he got dressed a little smile kept crawling up his face and he tucked the receipt into his pocket. He paused at the mirror before he went down to breakfast and made a face at his hair.

Will was still on his hunt for a cure and as much Jem hated it he was starting to find himself reaching for that hope. He had given up searching for a cure because he wanted to hold onto the present, to live in the life he had instead of wishing on a future that wasn't promised. Now the future kept pulling on his attention. He wanted to see who Will grew up to be without his curse dragging him down into the gutters. He wanted to be there when the Clave finally saw the power in Charlotte and started treating her with more respect. He wanted all the time he wasn’t going to get.

He wanted years of evenings spent with Tessa curled against his chest.

He shut his eyes and shook the thoughts loose. He would not sink into those dreams, no matter how deeply he wanted to. The wood of the washstand was smooth under his fingers and he gripped it a little tighter until his fingers started to ache. A tiny reminder of the weakness in his joints and the truth. He had only now. That was all he was guaranteed and he would make the best of it. He looked back up at the mirror and stumbled backwards.

The illusion held and then shattered. He leaned closer like he could pick out the flaw in the glass that had caused it. It must have been a trick of the light. For just a moment he had looked like he might have. Black hair, dark eyes, skin a pale gold-brown instead of near paper white. As he stared, picturing the image, it swam back into view. He watched the mirror and frowned. It didn't fall away this time. He shook his head and his hair fell across his forehead, black hair. It was long enough that it fell into his eyes and it looked black.

He pushed out the door of his room and took the least used hallways to Will's room. He knocked and ducked inside without waiting for an answer. Will was half dressed, his mostly healed scars from the demon attack still red around his waist. His head was stuck in his wardrobe and he was rustling around. He'd gone through a number of waist coats and shirts and tossed them on the bed. His room looked like it was inhabited by a girl who didn't know what she wanted to wear to an important ball.

"Will?" Jem asked and Will didn't turned to look at him. He just grunted from inside the wardrobe and tossed another shirt out onto the bed. It looked like the other two that were already there.

"What colour is my hair?" he asked.

"Have you forgotten? I have a mirror by the door there," Will sounded annoyed but it wasn't a hostile question. Jem paused to check and his hair was still black. It had red and gold tints in it where the sunlight slanting in from Will’s window caught it.

"Look at me," he said and Will finally stuck his head out from behind the door. His expression changed immediately. Jem couldn't have said what the first expression was, exasperation perhaps, but it became shock instantly.

"What happened?" he asked crossing the mess of the room, without managing to trip over a single thing strewn across the floor. He stopped in front of Jem and touched his hair, picking up the strands and running them through his fingers. He touched Jem's forehead and frowned at him, looking baffled.

"I think it's a glamour," Jem said.

"You think, did a witch cast it by accident?" Will asked nd then paused to consider that, “Did she?”

"The spell, the one from the party, it allows for sharing of magic, I think this is a glamour, like one of hers," he said.

"You are hardly a cat," Will said.

"I'm not as strong as she is," Jem said.

"Take it off," Will said.

"I don't know how," Jem growled.

Will's demeanor switched. Jem was on the brink of panicking and it wasn't until Will forced him to sit down and breathe that he realized that was what was wrong. This had shattered his calm. He was a Shadowhunter. He did not have glamours. He did not have magic. He had always known, no matter what else happened, what he was. Now he wasn’t sure.

Will’s hands were on his shoulders, holding hard and keeping him from floating away into panicked thoughts. Will’s voice slowly pulled him back from the brink. He was talking and Jem was barely hearing him but the sound helped.

He pictured his own face, his face as he knew it to be, silver and pale and looked up to see Will nodding. The glamour had faded and he was himself again. His calm didn't hold and he pulled himself up and went to check in the mirror, stumbling over a pair of boots Will had left on the floor. His own face stared back at him from the mirror and he rubbed at it before turning back to Will.

"Can you do another colour?" Will asked.

Jem started to protest and then the curiosity hit him too. It overwhelmed the fear that he wasn’t truly himself any more. Could he? How much control did he have? He glanced at Will who had come to stand beside him, still shirtless. Jem turned back to the mirror and had a moment of being unsure of his own face. Could he make it into anything? Jem shook his hair out of his eyes and imagined it purple. It took a moment to work. He had to close his eyes to do it. If he was looking at his own face, he couldn't change it.

Will let out a laugh and when Jem opened his eyes to stare at the colour. Will leaned in over his shoulder and pushed it up into a tangled mass of violet. He seemed to be testing to see if he could rub the colour off. It didn’t budge. Will’s humour took the edge off Jem’s anxiety. If Will, who hated Tessa and the spell and everything that went along with it, could laugh about this then it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was.

There was a knock on the door and they both jumped. This time being startled made Jem lose the magic. He glanced at the mirror again to see silver hair and silver eyes. He smoothed his hair back into place. The knock came from another world and he was lost in this one. A world where he doubted what he was and whether magic changed him. Exhilaration or terror or some mix of the two were warring in his chest.

"Mr. Herondale, if you don't come down to breakfast, you aren't getting fed," Sophie said on the other side of the door.

"Certainly, Soph, be right there," Will said.

Jem waited for Will to finish getting dressed and they went down for breakfast together. Jem couldn’t shake the urge to hang close to him and found himself sitting beside Will as they sat down across from Cecily and Will said something polite. It was a conversation that didn't require his full attention though he managed to say things that were required of him at the right intervals. When he finally escaped back to his room, pretending an illness he didn't feel, he gathered the robe Tessa had worn up in both hands and held it against his chest. He reached for her the way he reached for the parabatai bond but she was hidden away behind a change and it left him feeling alone.

He lay back and stared at the ceiling. He wasn’t ill but he was tired, like the magic had truly taken something out of him. He closed his eyes and fell asleep fully dressed with the smell of her lingering on the blankets around him.


	31. An Experiment

Jem sat in bed and drank his tea. It had been Cecily who had come to check in on him. He was a little bit delighted to find that Will's younger sister was everything Will was and it drove Will up the wall. She was stubborn and determined. She was kind without being warm. She was a terrifically fast learner with a sword. She was also enough of a lady that Jessamine had latched onto her as a new friend and Cecily had taken to shopping trips with enough enthusiasm that Jem had seen Jessie actually sitting in the training room in return. 

Cecily hadn't stayed long, just long enough to pat his hand and wish him a speedy recovery. It reminded him that she didn't know why he was sick. The worry that he would have to tell her before Jessamine did gnawed at him. He had told Tessa but no one else in a very long time. It wasn't a secret. He just didn't have anyone else who needed to know. His imagination was playing over how horrific it would sound in Jessie's telling when Will flopped down on the bottom of his bed.

"Do you need anything?" Will asked.

"No," Jem said. Will was calm and collected and it reminded Jem that this was a normal bad day. To everyone else, it was just another day in which Jem's joints ached and his breathing hitched. It wasn't anything too concerning. It wasn't anything worth noting.

He had planned on keeping it that way but when he glanced sideways at the little box of yin fen on the table beside him and the serene face of the goddess on the top, want boiled through him. The addiction roared and as much as he tried, he knew he wouldn't be able to ignore it all day. His little experiment was going to come to an end.

"I haven't had any," he admitted to Will.

"You will just make yourself weaker," Will said looking vaguely disapproving, "Holding out doesn't do anything to make the bad days better."

"Thank you, Madam Nursemaid," Jem said with enough sarcasm to bite.

"You shouldn't suffer needlessly," Will said with enough regret in his voice to give Jem some satisfaction, "When was your last one?"

Jem looked at Will for a moment. Looked at him sprawled out on the bottom of the bed, staring up at the ceiling. His hair had been knocked all askew by the flopping or perhaps he just hadn't brushed it. He wasn't looking at Jem. They rarely talked about the yin fen if they could avoid it and when they did it was usually in these vague terms. Jem almost smiled, he had been waiting on this question.

"Four days," Jem said.

Will blinked and sat up startled. He frowned at Jem. He had once gone three days when he'd been fourteen and the supplier had ran out before the next shipment arrived. It had nearly killed him and he had been stronger then. Will stared at him like he was crazy.

"I could get up right now," Jem said. "I could probably go down for tea as long as no one asked me to run or carry something heavy."

"How?" Will asked.

"For the night we went to the laboratory, I took my usual amount. I was high," he said it with all the emphasis he could. Most addicts wouldn't have considered it high but he did. It had left him feeling unbalanced, "It was too much, far too much. So I started taking less. Then I took none. I wanted to know."

"Four days with nothing," Will said. Jem nodded. Will looked like he was going to be angry. Then he sat up straighter and leaned his back against the foot board of the bed. He arranged his legs so they lay parallel to Jem’s . There were little gouges in the wood just beside his head where Tessa had perched.

She'd only come back to see him once since she'd spent the night against his chest and she'd been an owl the entire time. In what was one of the stranger moments of his life, he'd had an owl flitting around his room. She had perched on his bed, ticked across his table on talons, let him pet her feathers and watched him with her head tilted almost completely sideways when he had pulled out the violin and played just a little bit for her. He had run his fingers over those little scratches in the wood repeatedly since she had left.

"Tessa," Will said and Jem had to remind himself that Will could not see into his head and was not responding to his thoughts about her. Will leaned forward, "The other day you were using her magic. Now this."

Jem fell back against the cushions. He had needed to hear Will say it for it to be real. The day after the parabatai bond had been finished had been one of the most unsettling and exhilarating of his life. He had felt better. Will's power, Will's impossible boundless energy, had bled down that narrow connection and into him. Now he had another connection and he was pulling energy from it too. A lot of energy.

If Will was an anchor line keeping him from drifting out to sea, Tessa was a net. He wasn’t sure yet if it was a net pulling him out of the depths or if it was going to tangle around him so tightly he drowned.

“She’s making you stronger,” Will said.

“It would appear so,” Jem said.

“At least she’s good for something,” Will said.

“You should talk to her,” Jem said.

Will made a face, “And you probably shouldn’t.”

“Do you still believe she’s evil?” Jem asked.

“She’s dangerous. Where her heart is doesn’t matter when she’s a pawn of a man who tried to blow up the Silent City and the Institute and probably condoned having you magically enslaved. If he tells her to kill you, you’d let her in to do it,” Will said.

“She wouldn’t,” Jem said.

“Are you really that sure?” Will asked.

Jem turned his attention to the spot in his head where her emotions were. She was puzzled but calm. He let himself wallow in the feeling of her for a few moments before he answered Will, “I can feel her. I would know if she was planning to kill me.”

“Which is a notably different sentence from, I am perfectly sure that the fugitive and criminal I am considering declaring my intentions to would not try to kill me,” Will said.

“I’m not-” Jem started and then shrugged and rolled his eyes. He sat back against the bed. “She is so alone Will. She’s my friend. She’s not any worse a choice for that than you are. Perhaps all my friends are mad.”

“A drunken lunatic, a dying man and a criminal girl, we should write a penny dreadful,” Will said which made Jem laugh. Will proceeded to plan out the complicated plot of their little drama and as much as Jem laughed along and added details when they occurred to him, the story ended up feeling more plausible than the truth.

“Take something,” Will told Jem before he finally left him in peace. As much as he was loath to do it, hearing it aloud shot through the last of his self control and he mixed up as little as he thought he could get away with and drank it with a sigh of relief he would never have allowed himself if there was someone else in the room.

Then he got dressed and went downstairs before it had completely taken effect because if he stayed in the room, he was just going to take more. The addiction raged harder than the pain did after so many days without any. He went to try and drown the need in company.


	32. A Meeting on a Bridge

Of all the places he didn’t expect to see her, she fell into step beside him as he walked out toward the bridge at twilight. She wore yellow and there were flowers in her hair and she looked so normal and so young that he took a moment to stare before he offered her his arm. She took it with a smile that was brighter and more unconstrained than any he had ever seen on her face. He felt the wave of happiness that went with it and let it carry him. He smiled back at her. 

They hadn’t planned it but if anyone could have seen them through their glamours it would have looked like a carefully planned meeting. Maybe she had been waiting for him. That thought made his smile spread.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked.

“Yes, how did you know I was ill?” he asked her.

“You felt different, not as strong,” she said glancing away from him like he might find the admission embarrassing, “And I came to see you but you had already gone to bed and put out the light.”

“Do I usually feel strong?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. He was watching her and not at all watching where he was going. That he wasn’t leaving a trail of little old ladies glaring at his rudeness or carts kicked over in his wake was shocking. He glanced up at the road ahead just to be sure there wasn’t a brick wall or a crowd of slime demons for him to walk her straight into. He wouldn’t have seen either until it was too late.

“How much can you feel from me?” he asked.

She looked at him. Her eyes were bright and gray and curious. He had only ever seen her dressed up all ladylike and neat once before and it was a little like seeing another side of her. Her hair was carefully done, her gloves where they rested on his sleeve were clean and carefully fitted. She took care with her appearance when she wasn’t running around in someone else’s body or trying to save people’s lives.

“Not much. I can feel when you are stronger or weaker. I can feel a change about you sometimes. That night, with the Dark Sisters, you were different but I can’t understand how. I can’t tell what you’re thinking or feeling,” she trailed off and looked back at him, “How much can you feel?”

It was not a casual question. He could feel that deeply nervous twinge in her. He had mentioned it but they hadn’t had time to explain it. They were out on Blackfriar’s Bridge by now and he had managed to bring her to the point in the middle where he always stopped in spite of how distracted he was.

“I can feel your emotions when you’re yourself,” he said and she shifted imperceptibly beside him. She was staring down at the water and holding onto his arm. “I can’t read your thoughts or tell why you feel the way that you do. I knew how upset you were when you couldn’t figure out how to stop the Dark Sisters as you called them. I didn’t know until after it was over that that was the reason for your feelings. I know when you’re planning and when you’re scared but not why.”

She stared at the water, perfectly still.

And terrified.

The terror surprised him. He wasn’t sure what to expect but fear hadn’t been on the list. Anger perhaps at his intrusion. Disgust or discomfort. But if any of that was there it was drowned out by the thrum of fear in her. He took her elbows and turned her towards him though she didn’t look up. She was trembling just enough he could feel it in his fingers but not so much that he could see it.

“Tess,” he said and her eyes darted up and then away and he felt the need to flee like it was his own, “Stay, please, tell me what you need, I can help make this better, I swear it.”

She did look up at him then, disbelief pushing through the fear and the emotion under it that felt almost like grief. They were glamoured and passersby just wove around them like a rock in a stream. Jem ignored them. He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers and she inhaled sharply but didn’t pull away.

“How much do you hate me?” she asked in a whisper.

“No,” he said shaking his head, “I don’t, I couldn’t.”

“You can see all the darkest corners of me. Not only see but feel them as if they were your own. I can spend more time in other forms, then you can escape it more often,” she said.

He caught her face between his hands and turned it to look up at him. The grief was stronger than the fear now. Grief over him. She believed, utterly believed that the connection would destroy this thing that they were building. She believed that he couldn’t simultaneously know her heart and care about her.

“I don’t need to escape it,” he said and was surprised that the words felt true. He had been talking to Will and Charlotte only that morning about the ways the link might be severed and as much as he craved normalcy, he didn’t want her gone.

“My heart isn’t a nice place to visit, you shouldn’t be condemned to it along with all the rest of this spell,” she said.

“I am not condemned,” he said, her skin was warm under her hands and though he could still feel that desire to run, she was holding his gaze, “Your heart is a place I could spend my life in, Theresa. I don’t know what you see in yourself but I can’t find it. You are determined and intelligent. You are compassionate and curious. You have brilliant flashes of humour and happiness that are so rare but so beautiful. I worry about you when you disappear into a change for a long time.”

She started to speak a few times, her gaze turned away though she didn’t step away from his touch. She was confused but the fear and the sadness were weaker. He stroked his thumbs over the arches of her cheeks and waited for her to quiet. Her breathing was uneven.

“I’ve killed people,” she said after a long silence.

“So have I,” he said.

“You have killed people like Mrs. Black,” Tessa said, “Monsters and demons and people who deserved it. I have killed people because I was told to or because they were in the way of a mission. I should have killed you the night I met you. I almost did.”

“What stopped you?” he asked.

“I was scared,” she admitted looking back up at him and then away again, “All my childhood, the Shadowhunters were the monsters. They had killed my mother, they would kill me and my brother as well. They could become parabatai, two headed monsters and they had weapons that would burn off our skin and tear out our minds. I grew up saying Magister the way other children say father. I never doubted him. I knew it to be true the way that I know the sky to be up.”

She fell silent but she had pushed down her storm of emotions. The honesty of it had retreated behind her icy calm that he remembered from that first meeting. Her curiosity took on a different light with those stories in mind.

“And then you promised to help me,” she said, “Promised me asylum and a bed to sleep in. The Magister took us in, took us in off the streets and told us we owed him. When you offered me aid, you didn’t know that there was anything I could offer you. You didn’t know of my powers. You did it out of kindness. I couldn’t kill you after that. Monsters don’t offer you beds without obligations. It make any sense.”

“Tessa,” he said and she looked up at him again.

“What do you want from me?” she asked and the grief roared back in so hard that it almost staggered him. She wasn’t crying but the force of the emotion almost choked a sob out of him.

“You saved my life,” he said. “You stood against the Magister and your brother and who knows what else and you saved my life. I don’t want anything from you. If you think there is some sort of debt between us that needs paying, consider it settled.”

“You are not a monster and we are always capable of change. If you have done horrible things, then do better. You already have. I know, even if no one else knows, I do. I know how long and how hard you worked to stop those warlocks down in Whitechapel. I could feel it. I know that you warned us down in the Silent City, you did what you could to keep us safe. You can be more than he taught you to be. You already are,” he said.

He leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers. She was a a riot of feeling. The grief and the fear and a longing that was tangible the way starvation was tangible. She needed and he couldn’t tell what it was that she needed but in that moment he would have done anything it took to give her whatever it was.

“I’m not the person you think I am,” she said.

“Tessa Gray, I suspect that you are a hundred times the person I think you are,” he whispered.

They hadn’t been that close a moment before. It was a dangerous kind of proximity. They hovered there, in the middle of a bridge in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities. She was the one who raised her chin, maybe it was just to look at him but he felt the whisper of her lips against his and kissed her.

She was warm, her skin under his hands was silk with a hammering pulse below it. His hands slipped down and cupped her neck as she kissed him back. Her mouth moved against his and every thought that wasn’t her fled. That riot of emotion didn’t quiet. It broadened. Deeper and more tangled. Hope and exhilaration and a happiness so bright it could only be described as joy wound through the darker pieces of her. He fell into it all.

Then the storm slammed shut and she pulled back so fast it scared him. He was sure he had hurt her but she had changed and was looking at him with wide brown eyes and a face narrower than her own. Her hair was still beautiful but the change or the kiss had knocked it just a little bit loose. Tessa stared at him out of this stranger’s face.

“I need to leave,” she said.

Then she turned and pushed away from the railing. This time he was determined not to loose her in another crowd and plunged after her. She was faster and her magic went far beyond what he could understand. He lost sight of her near the edge of the bridge and couldn’t find her again in the evening crowd of people and carriages.

He swore and touched his lips where the feeling of hers lingered. It was futile but he spent another half hour dreaming mad dreams of finding her again before he went home alone to hide in his room. She didn’t come to visit and she didn’t returned to herself before she was asleep. He felt her slip back into his consciousness but it was that whisper of her that came with her sleep. He held onto the feeling until he drifted off as well.


	33. Lessons in Politics

Jem was in a foul mood. Tessa hadn’t been back to visit in a week and she was keeping herself hidden behind a change. All he could get from her were flashes just as she woke up or as she was fading off to sleep. He was deeply worried and deeply angry with himself, he had overstepped and scared her and he wasn’t capable of shaking the memory of the kiss. He regretted it and wanted it again all in the same breath.

The memories snuck up on him. He sat in the drawing room and looked at a book without reading it while it all replayed in his mind. Memories of her pulse hammering against his palm, her breath against his face, her lips moving with his. He’d thought the kiss through over and over. The rush and quiet of her feelings. The way the fear had ebbed and something warmer had taken over before panic rushed in and she had vanished.

“Do you know the Institute secrets?” Cecily asked dropping herself down onto the sofa beside him. Jem blinked away memories of Tessa and raised his eyebrows at her.

“Secrets?” he asked feeling a little stupid.

“You have been here far longer than I have and though I know you aren’t close, you must have some idea who Jessamine is seeing don’t you?” Cecily said.

“Jessamine is seeing someone?” Jem asked.

“She is so secretive,” Cecily said with a pout.

“Tell me what you know,” he said.

“He’s very handsome, blonde of course, and mundane, that is very important to her and he wishes to marry her as soon as he has all his financial affairs settled. There is something about an inheritance I believe. They’re going to have three children and live in a very fashionable townhouse. So many dreams but she won’t even tell me his name,” Cecily said.

“She hasn’t mentioned him to me at all,” Jem said.

“If you do learn of anything, do tell me,” she said, “I shall reciprocate with any good gossip I find along the way.”

Jem laughed which was something of a relief after the state of his emotions for the last few days. He had trained and read and wandered the streets and played until his fingers were sore from pressing against the violin strings. He had tried everything he knew of to drown out thoughts of Tessa but nothing had worked.

So he told Cecily stories he did know. Jessamine’s attachments were well outside what his knowledge but he told her stories of Shadowhunter society and the great families of London and the Clave. It wasn’t gossip, not really, just information that Will would never think to share and Jessamine actively avoided knowing. That the Blackthorns had money and the Penhallows didn’t but the Penhallows had a history of heroics and the Blackthorns didn’t. Cecily asked questions questions until they were talking about the Clave and council meetings and how one was chosen as Consul. Jem appreciated the distraction.

“What are the two of you doing?” Will asked. He had appeared in the doorway with a pile of papers in hand. He tilted his head as he considered the two of them.

“Gossiping like little old ladies,” Jem said.

“Well stop it and come help me sort these,” Will said dropping himself down into a chair at a nearby table. Jem stood and his joints were blessedly silent. There was a medium he had struck. He took very little yin fen but it was enough to keep him feeling bright and strong. As far as side effects of mind control spells went, he was glad of this one.

Cecily sat down beside Will and Jem sat across from them. Will parceled out the papers and gave Cecily instructions on how to determine which petitions required immediate responses and which could be put to the side for later. Jem watched them as he started in on his own pile. Will behaved differently with Cecily than he did with any other person and Jem found he enjoyed watching them. How he treated his sister was the tangible proof that Will’s curse was truly gone.

“There are a lot of these,” Jem said when the discussion had finished. Usually petitions for Nephilim intervention were few and far between. They rarely needed multiple people to sort them.

“This is a request for intervention in a succession dispute among vampires,” Will said holding up a piece of paper and flapping it around.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jem said reaching for it.

“Why is it ridiculous? Shadowhunters enforce the law do they not? Mundane courts get involved in business dealings of that sort, why should this be so different?” Cecily asked.

“Because Downworld doesn’t like our intervention. The vampires have their own traditions and rules that the Accords do not touch,” Jem explained. Will picked up the explanation and Jem turned back to the document in front of him as Will and Cecily argued Downworld politics across the table from him.

There, hidden halfway down the page in the scrawling old fashioned penmanship was an explanation for why. Jem read it three times before he passed it back across the table to Will and tapped on the paragraph.

One of the vampire clans had been - it claimed - held in thrall by the Magister and had recently returned to freedom. The request wasn’t so much for help with succession as it was an attempt to get a promise from the Nephilim that if Belcourt’s clan reabsorbed the tattered remnants of DeQuincey’s vampires, they wouldn’t suffer for it.

“What the bloody hell is the Magister doing?” Will asked after Jem had pointed it out and passed it back. Will flinched a little when he realized he had sworn in front of Cecily. Cecily didn’t even glance at him, she was busy reading over his shoulder.

“Changing his business plan perhaps?” Jem said.

“To what? Does it have to do with the Pyxis? What is he doing with that and why hasn’t it happened yet?” Will asked.

“The Pyxis? What is a pyxis?” Cecily asked.

“A box of demons,” Will said then paused when his sister gave him an puzzled look, “It is a prison of sorts, it holds the spirits of captured demons. A killed demon returns to its home world, dispatched from our world but not gone. The ones held in the pyxis are trapped, they cannot return to their world and therefore can’t cross back over into our world. Our pyxis was stolen by a cat and a card sharp and a collection of metal men.”

“Is that a joke?” Cecily asked.

“No, the cat is a shape shifter and the card sharp isn’t terribly sharp but the metal men are truly metal men,” Jem said flashing a grin at Will.

“Is it her?” Will asked.

“Her?” Jem said and his thoughts circled back around to Tessa again. He had lasted almost a half an hour without thinking of her at all and now Will was bringing her up.

“This is could be a part of ‘trying to make it better’” Will said.

“You think she has that much power?” Jem asked.

“I am begrudgingly admitting she might be clever enough to stall whatever plan he has. She has Shadowhunter blood, correct? She must be the one who was meant to open it. No one else could. A metal man could carry a pyxis but not open it. She arranged for us to fight the battle she could not. She is secretive and dangerous but she isn’t stupid,” Will said.

“Who?” Cecily asked.

“The cat,” Will said, “The shapeshifting one.”

“It could be her,” Jem said. He unconsciously rubbed at the rune on the back of his hand. It shimmered sometimes but in the light but the witchlight in the library made it look even more bruise like than usual. He fiddled with it as Will tossed around theories and helped fill in the bigger gaps in the story of Tessa Gray without giving away any of Jem’s secrets. Jem let his thoughts press up against the barrier that held her away from him and his attention was only partially on the Herondale siblings as they talked. He had so many questions for Tessa Gray and no way to ask them.


	34. A Risk Worth Taking

Jem found Will in the training room, throwing daggers at a target like it had just threatened his life and called his mother something rude. He looked angry and he'd been up there long enough that his face was flushed. He ignored Jem though Jem knew he could tell he wasn't alone anymore. He adjusted his grip on the blade and then threw it far harder than was required. It thunked heavily against the target just off center. Will grimaced. 

"It's such a lovely day," Jem said in a bright voice. He turned over the object he held in his hands but didn't mention it. He watched Will who curled a lip at the offending target. He smoothed out the expression and pulled in a breath. He ran his fingers through his hair, the hilt blade still held between them.

"Do you require something?" Will asked in an exaggeratedly polite voice lining up the target again.

Jem ignored his attitude and readjusted his fingers on the blade so he wouldn't drop it when he tried to throw it. It was a beginner mistake but Will didn't lash out at him for the correction instead the look on his face was almost grateful. Will threw this one properly. And without the excessive force it landed right where he aimed it. Jem watched Will collect up his collection of blades and bring them back to where Jem stood and waited. He waited as Will laid the blades out carefully like it was a ritual of great importance.

"She wants me to go home," Will finally said.

"Of course she does, that surprises you?" Jem said.

"No."

"But it makes you angry?"

"No. She won't leave. She's even more stubborn than she used to be."

"You want her to go back."

"Of course I do. I left for a reason. To protect them all. I came here because I could not be there, because I was too young to live on my own, because my mother had always told me the Shadowhunters were heartless and where better to be unlovable than among a people who could not love?" Will said.

"You want to go back," Jem said.

"I don't want to leave," Will said.

"And you can't have both," Jem said.

Will didn't answer that. He just picked up another one of his knives and went back to throwing it like the answer could be found if he only managed to hit the wall hard enough. He had gotten everything he wanted and it had just brought along everything he still could not have. Jem tried to imagine Will as one of those country gentlemen come to town to walk in High Park and meet the right parts of society. He could see it of course, the suits and the manners and the parties but he wasn't sure who that Will would be. What would he do with his time? Would he go on fox hunts instead of demon hunts? Would he be frivolous and write terrible poetry or would he manage his estate carefully and plan to join parliament?

"What's that?" Will asked finally pulling himself out of his own head long enough to look at Jem directly.

Jem held it out. Will took it silently and turned it over in his hands. He popped the lid of the little silver box and gave the contents a little shake. Jem could smell it from where he stood and holding still took physical restraint. He wanted to step farther away and he wanted to snatch it back from Will all at once. The yin fen always itched at the back of his mind but the craving knew what he was about to do and it wasn't happy about it. His joints were aching more than they should have. It was all in his head but that didn’t make the addiction less.

"Why are you carrying this about?" Will asked.

"Charlotte told me that Ragnor Fell has an idea of how to sever the connection to Tessa. She's had him working on it in secret for what must be an exorbitant fee for a little while now," Jem said.

"And?"

"There is something I want to try before we break the connection,” he paused and tried to formulate it but he just said, “She makes me stronger."

Will understood it. Understood without needing to be told. His anger skated back across his face and Jem ignored it as it came out in his tone, "That is madness. Stronger is not invincible."

"Stronger is better than I have ever had before. I can't turn my back on the only tangible hope I have had in years. It is worth trying," Jem said and his eyes fell shut for a moment.

Will was probably right, that to stop taking the yin fen entirely was madness. The hope that the combined strength Will and Tessa would be enough to anchor his body as the drug burned through it wouldn't leave him. Each day that he took a little less he could feel his body protesting. He weaned himself off of it bit by bit but he wasn't going to be strong enough to do this alone.

There was a bit he didn't say but he suspected that Will understood. He had been given only a few weeks without bad days but he didn't want to lose that. The idea of giving that up kept him up at night since Charlotte had told him of Ragnor’s plan. He had gotten used to waking up without having to test to see if his knees would be strong enough to hold him that day. He wasn't sure he wanted to be free of the spell as much as he wanted to be free of the pain.

"If you are dying, I will give you this," Will said snapping the lid of the yin fen box shut.

"If there is no other hope, then I trust you to make that choice but Will, if there is any glimmer of hope, I want it. Are you with me on this?" Jem asked.

"I am with you in everything," Will said, "When do we start?"

"I already have," Jem said before pulling him into a hug. Will returned it with as much force as Jem put into it.

"If you die on me, you bastard, I will never forgive you," Will said and it was as close as either of them would get to admitting the risk.

Jem pressed his forehead to Will’s and held him close for a moment before he turned and went back downstairs to write letters he would burn after, or that would be found after. It depended on which after he got. He paused in the doorway to flash Will a smile that he hoped was confident and enthusiastic.


	35. six days

Jem was dying. He had been dying for a long time but it hadn't felt immediate like this did. His lungs made a wet sound each time he sucked in a breath. He was in an out of consciousness and had been for two days. The last clear conversation he could remember was Charlotte and Will arguing over whether calling the Silent Brothers would make things better or worse. 

Since then it had been impressions. A hand in his. A cold cloth on his forehead. Things that he knew couldn't be real and had to be a symptom of the fever like shifting walls and the sky above him.

The rattle that preceded a gust of cold wind pulled him back into himself but he wasn't strong enough to open his eyes. The window had been opened and he was certain that the sound of feathers and the ticking of talons was in his imagination but then she was there. Past the fever and the pain and the clawing addiction that tore at what little conscious thought he was still capable of, he could feel her again. She had come back and she was horrified and angry.

"What is wrong with him?" her voice cut through the haze and Jem latched on to it, connecting it to the emotions that weren’t his. Tessa.

"He's dying," Will said.

"And you're just letting it happen?" she snapped back.

"No," Will said, "He thought he was strong enough to fight out the other side of the retreat of the drug but it would appear he was wrong. I'm going to attempt to bring him back."

Jem had known that was what was happening but hearing it said so plainly made it real. If Will was giving up the hope then it was truly hopeless. The addiction sang through his blood at the prospect of getting what it wanted. Will probably had the little box of yin fen in the room. Jem was glad he wasn’t strong enough to ask for it.

"And so why did you finally let me in?" she asked.

"I don't know if he's strong enough," Will said.

"For what?" she asked.

"To recover. He asked me to wait, to be sure that there was no other hope and I worry that I've waited too long," Will said.

Tessa made a sound that might have just been an inhalation of breath but could have been the start of a sob. She was drowning in a dark mixture of emotion so strong that Jem couldn’t isolate any one feeling. It had been so long since she had been herself while they were both awake that it would have been overwhelming even if he'd been entirely healthy. As it was, he spun with her, her feelings more real than anything else.

"Thank you," she said and Jem wasn't sure who she was speaking to until Will answered.

"I didn't do it for you, he would want to see you even if he can't hear you," Will sounded angry.

She picked up his hand and his fingers protested being moved. The joints were so weak that any shift hurt and so much hurt already. Even if speaking had been possible, he would not have asked her to let go. He pushed all his strength into tightening his hand on hers and only managed to achieve a twitch that felt like knives in every joint from finger to shoulder. Her emotions were a flood but then they whittle down.

Perhaps she did it intentionally, perhaps he imagined it but the torrent of feeling became targeted. She pet his hand gently and told him a story in feelings. She didn't speak or if she did, he'd lost the ability to hear it but he could feel her. She sent him emotions that went with curious and terrified first meetings and the same mix of doubt and trust that he had felt in the Silent City. Questions and hope and he let himself call the warm feel love for the first time.

"I should leave," she said after not nearly long enough. Jem didn't think he'd have the strength for it but his fingers twitched on hers and actually held this time.

"No, he's breathing," Will said in a voice that was softer than it had been before. Incredulous.

"Of course he is, he is alive," she snapped.

"He's breathing evenly. He has barely been able to pull in air since last night. That was when I knew this was impossible," Will said and Jem felt his approach, felt him lean down over the bed opposite from Tessa. Jem still held to her hand and the prospect that Will would make her leave felt like a greater concern than the state of his lungs.

"Can you stay?" Will asked her and Jem felt her surprise as Will pushed on, the words coming out in a tumble like he was sure he needed to convince her, "You're a source of energy for him just as I am, stronger even than I am because your magic is so different. He wanted every chance. He made me promise not to give up while there was hope. You are that hope. Will you stay?"

"As long as there is hope," she said and she tightened her hold on his hand. His fingers screamed and his wrist ached and his heart settled in to beat more evenly because she wasn't leaving.


	36. nine days

The next few days were haze and pain and confusion and Tessa. He had been able to keep count early on of how many days he had been without yin fen but that was gone now. He couldn't reliably say whether it was day or night or mark any passage of time. Sometimes it felt like only minutes between the times when someone poured broth into his mouth though he knew it must have been longer than that. Tessa was there and Will was there and sometimes Cecily or Charlotte and Henry passed through to check on him. Once he was sure he heard Jessamine's voice.

Sometimes he came back to himself to find Tessa holding his hand, other times she lay on the bed beside him and touched his hair. She was gentle and determined. He let his conscious moments bleed into her. It was so hard to hold onto any one thought so he just let himself sink into her emotions. He had missed her so much, missed her like a stolen piece of himself. He was still holding onto the hope that he could survive this but he thought that if he did die, at least he got to have this time with her before he went.

He came back to consciousness sometimes and could even flutter his eyelids open if he tried but it never lasted long. He usually lay still and listened. One of them was almost always there and sometimes he woke up to both of them.

“What are you reading?” Tessa asked. She lay beside him in the bed. It was absurdly intimate even with her above the blankets and him below. Even with Will sitting there. She had a hand on his chest and her voice came from a little above him like she was propped up on an elbow.

“Poetry,” Will said and he must have been sitting because his voice was higher. Jem was aware of where he was to his right, close enough to touch if he could have reached out a hand. They were in the same room and having a perfectly civil conversation. They were both on the bed with him. His illness was their no man’s land in their mutual distrust.

“About what?” she asked.

Will flipped a page and read aloud.

>   
> 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,  
> And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;  
> Tu—whit! Tu—whoo!  
> And hark, again! the crowing cock,  
> How drowsily it crew.

“Is there more?” she asked.

“It’s rather long,” Will said.

“I don’t mind but you needn’t if you rather not,” she said.

“A poetry fan are you?” Will asked.

“I’ve never read poetry,” she said.

“Dear Lord, I have discovered why James likes you so much. Do you think he’ll listen if I explain to him there are many women who are not wanted criminals who hate poetry?” Will said.

Tessa didn’t get defensive or argue with him. She just smoothed out the shirt over Jem’s shoulder as she said calmly, “I didn’t say I hated poetry, I said I have never read it. The Magister taught us things he deemed important. I speak French and German for international business deals and I know how to keep accounts and how to repair steam engines. We were never given time for frivolous reading.”

“Frivolous,” Will repeated but Jem could hear a note of something else in his voice, curiosity or sympathy perhaps, it was hard to tell without being able to see his face.

“There isn’t anything to learn in poetry,” she said in that flat voice she used when she was parroting things she had been taught but didn’t fully believe.

“That’s ridiculous, there is much to learn in poetry and it is more complex by far than steam engine repair as there are no diagrams,” Will said, “I’ll prove it to you.”

Jem lost his hold on the conversation as Will launched into an overly dramatic reading of Christobel that Tessa genuinely seemed to enjoy. Jem let her feeling swallow him again rather than listen to Will read. The words calmed her and that calmed him as he drifted off again.


	37. eleven days

Jem blinked open his eyes to a dark room. He was thirsty and he hurt but his eyes could focus. There was an arm across his stomach and he turned to look at Tessa. Her cheek was pressed against his arm and her hair had been plaited so it didn’t tangle in the bed. He tried to speak and the sound that came out was dry and cracked and sounded nothing like words. 

It startled her awake. She snapped up in the bed and he wanted to apologize for waking her but the rush of relief that came from her as she met his gaze washed the apology away. She did something with her fingers and it made the candles by the bedside flare. Her fingers brushed his hair back from his face and he knew it needed washing but she didn’t seem to care.

“Hello,” she said.

He managed a ghost of a smile and the word came out only as, “’Lo.”

She got up then and brought him water and he drank the entire cup. It made his stomach ache but he wanted more.

“Do you need anything?” she asked and he shook his head. He wasn’t going to last long awake and all he really wanted was to look at her. There were shadows under her eyes and she was pale. She lay near him, propped up so she could watch him.

“How are you?” he slurred out.

“Better now that I know that you are still with us,” she said. His eyes fell shut as he smiled. She stroked his cheek with the back of a finger and he looked up at her again. There were foot steps outside the door and Tessa frowned at him but then pulled away. The candles snuffed out and he didn’t hear her feet hit the floor. She was gone like a ghost before the door opened.

“Jemmy, you’re awake,” Charlotte said when the witchlights came up and she could see that his eyes were open. He gave her a weak smile but he was already fading again. There was some broth and some assertions of how well he was doing that he didn’t quite believe but didn’t argue.

By the time Will had made it up to see him, he had almost lost the battle to stay awake and couldn’t manage more than a smile before his eyes fell shut and he couldn’t find the strength to open them again. Charlotte left to let him rest but Will stayed.

“Where did your little nurse go?” Will asked but Jem wasn’t strong enough to answer any more but he heard Will say, “Oh,” just before he felt a brush of fur against his cheek. The cat curled up in the crook of his neck so her little face was close enough to his cheek that he could feel whiskers.

“You are a very strange person, Miss Gray,” Will said and the cat raised her head and it must have been to look at him. Jem felt Will lean over them and felt Tessa tense and then relax and tuck her face back in against his skin. Jem forced his eyes open just enough to figure out what was going on, Will had pet her head and she hadn’t hissed at him. Jem fell back into unconsciousness with her tiny heartbeat against his neck and Will sitting at his side.


	38. fifteen days

The next time he came back to himself, she wasn't there. He stretched a hand out. She was asleep - that much he could feel - but she wasn't there. It was surprising just how jarring he found it. He had no idea how long he had been waving in and out of consciousness like this but he had come to expect her.

"She's perfectly well," Will's voice said and Jem couldn't force his eyes open. The pain was worse than it had been. He must have frowned because Will sighed and came to sit closer.

"You are pulling power from her just as you said you would," Will said, "But you're taking more than she has to give. She was unconscious this morning. I put her in my room as no one goes in there without a pressing need. I'm sure she'll be back here as soon as she's strong enough to walk unassisted."

Jem did force his eyes open then and somehow that hurt. His joints burned as they always did but now so did all his muscles, even the tiny ones that worked his eyelids. Will looked concerned but was carefully masking it. He was dressed but not carefully, a pair of pants and shirt sleeves he had rolled to his elbows. When he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, Jem could see that he had strength runes scrawled on both arms. He wasn't only pulling on Tessa as he died. He was pulling power from Will as well. The parabatai rune wasn't designed to be used like this and it would protect Will from being pulled all the way down with him. Tessa apparently didn’t have that protection.

"You needn't hurt yourself," Jem slurred out. It didn't come out smoothly. It tumbled out of his mouth in slurs and broken syllables.

"I am fit as a fiddle," Will waving his hands in the air like he was doing a little dance before leaning in and saying more seriously, "As Tessa will be. You should not be worrying over anyone but yourself. She needs a good meal and I need a good drink and we'll all be ready to go dancing by the time you are."

"Tessa," he said but lost the rest of the sentence. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard Will refer to her by name without making it a joke or an insult. He couldn't put that thought into words he could say.

"I will keep an eye on her," Will said which was perhaps a more surprising comment than calling her by name had been. 

"Thank you," Jem tried to say but he wasn't sure if the words actually came out or if he had just imagined them as the pain and the darkness pulled him back down.


	39. seventeen days

He woke from a nightmare of his mother's voice and the pain was too similar when he woke to shake the dream off. He might have screamed - must have - though he didn't remember doing it. The woman's voice in the room was speaking in English and wasn't his mother's but he was too disoriented to make sense of it.

"Jem?" she was so scared. Scared for him and when he realized he was feeling that emotion in his own racing heart that he knew who she was. This wasn't his mother. This was Tessa. Tessa who touched his face and kept saying his name. Tessa who wasn't tied or bleeding or dying. He collapsed back into the bed and had to fight against tears of fear and relief and loss.

"Who are you?" another voice said, "What are you doing here?"

Jem wasn't aware enough of anything to pick out the voice as Sophie's for a long time. Tessa hadn't changed or hidden at the opening of the door this time. She stayed at his side as her fear for him continued to beat through her. She was hostile and defensive. His mind called up a mental image of a cat with her back arched though he knew Tessa was still in human form. Protective. That was the feeling. Like she felt the need to defend him against Sophie of all people.

Jem missed pieces of the conversation. Sophie's confusion, the addition of Will's voice, Tessa's slowly calming fear.

These were sounds of London. He wasn't alone and he was an incredibly long way from Shanghai. The dream hovered at the edge of his thoughts and blotted out the real world. Thoughts of Tessa screaming or the idea of waking up to find that it was Will's voice that had gone silent instead of his father's. The demon had killed everyone else in the Institute that day. Sophie would have died the way Chuntao had. Jem hadn't thought of her in a long time. Halfway between a tutor and governess the woman had been a fixture throughout all his earliest memories. He felt a pang of guilt for not mourning her as he mourned his parents. If he recovered, he would write to her family.

"Soph, right now she is the only thing standing between him and death, you are not telling Charlotte anything," Will said as Jem shook the dream loose and caught hold of the real world again.

"If she's so trustworthy then it won't matter if Mrs. Branwell was told now would it?" Sophie said.

"Charlotte is Head of the Institute, she is honour bound to the Clave. She couldn't know where Tessa is and not tell them. She's taking enough risks not telling them of Jem's enchantment. Locating Tessa is a Clave mandate. All Shadowhunters would be bound by oath to report her. Telling Charlotte will put her in the position of choosing between her duty and Jem's life," Will said.

"Aren't you bound by the same code?" Sophie asked.

"I am not technically an adult, I've not had my swearing in. I am not truly bound by the oaths of the Clave," Will said, "And even if I were, I would choose his life over that oath. The Clave can strip me of my marks and throw me into the street if they want to. If Jem survives this, I do not care."

"I am not here to cause trouble. I am here becaues I owe Jem a debt. I will not give you cause to regret my presence," Tessa said and that fierce warmth was there in her emotions as she spoke and Jem pulled it in close around himself.

"How long has it been since he had any yin fen?" Sophie asked. Sometime while he had been lost in the fringes of the dream they must have explained the rest of it. She sounded skeptical. Jem could picture her, her arms crossed tightly across her chest and her lips set into a line as she spoke.

"Better than two weeks," Will said, "Just a few months ago, three days could have killed him."

"He doesn't look well," Sophie said.

"The drug is still trying to kill him but this may be the only chance he will ever have to be free of it," Will said and a touch of confidence ran through Tessa like hearing Will say it out loud made it more real.

"Miss Gray is it?" Sophie said.

"Yes," Tessa said and the calm curiosity he thought of as hers was there as she considered Sophie. There was wariness there but the defensiveness and the fear was gone. She still sat on the bed beside Jem and her hand was on his.

"You may be a secret guest but a guest is a guest and your hair is a fright," Sophie said and Tessa laughed. It bubbled up and over and then was gone. Sophie continued as though it hadn't happened and maybe Jem had imagined it, "Come along, we'll get it properly washed and I'll find you something more," a long pause, "Appropriate to wear."

Tessa got up and moved away from him. Her protectiveness was still wrapped around him like a physical thing. And Will's voice was there, though too far away now for Jem to hear it. Whatever he said was reassuring enough to make her agree to leave the room. Will could talk her into things. The world had turned sideways where those two were concerned.

"Either Sophie is going to kill her and bury her out in the garden or she's actually going to fix up her hair and put her in a pretty dress," Will said idly, like he was talking to himself though he was addressing Jem. "I don't think I've ever seen her when she wasn't wearing something ridiculous. All your friends are very strange Carstairs. You should look into that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This the second time I've put the swearing in thing into this story. We don't know much from canon about the initiation of adult Shadowhunters but I imagine there must be something. That legal line between minor and adult that Will is walking makes sense to me even though we never see it said specifically that Shadowhunter youth are held to a different standard than they are as adults. Of course treason is the type of crime that might get you tried as an adult when you're seventeen but even if you told Will point blank he would go to prison for this, he'd still put Jem first.


	40. twenty two days

Relief.

The scent of burned sugar. 

Fire.

Nausea. 

A scream. 

Want. 

Want. 

Want. 

Another scream. 

Was it him? Was it someone else?

His stomach twisting and full of glass. 

Explosions behind his eyes. 

Want. 

Need. 

What was on fire?

More. 

Not enough.

So much pain. 

White hot and in every inch of his skin.

His chest contracting and folding in like it were made of paper.

Burning paper. 

Shards and pieces and pain.

Then nothing.

Nothing. 

Nothing. 

Nothing. 

It all went black.


	41. still twenty two days

"Well, he's quite in demon slaying shape but it should help," a vaguely familiar male voice said. The words were the first thing that had stayed still in a long time. Everything had been blurring and spinning away from him for what felt like a long time. The voice didn't have a name but it had a shape and that was better than anything else in his head right then. Pain and darkness and flashes of fear and worry and love and hands on his and fingers in his hair and water that burned on the way down and air that was thicker than it should have been.

"He's breathing more easily," a voice with a name said. Will. The voice was Will's voice.  
  
"Perhaps it is time to end this Will," a female voice said but it wasn't the voice that Jem had expected though he wasn't sure whose voice he had wanted. This was Charlotte. Her voice was the one for orders and commands. The one she used when she would accept no arguments.

"I tried," Will said, "That's what caused this."

"You tried," Charlotte said.

"He hadn't moved in three days. He was breathing and would swallow water and he was alive but he hadn't moved," Will said and the anguish and guilt was climbing up his throat.

"You gave him yin fen?" Charlotte said.

"Yes and it sent him into that," Will spat out the last word.

"You threw oil on the coals and set the room on fire," the other voice said, “His body tried to take in all the yin fen at once and couldn’t. There isn’t a large enough dosage in the world to replace all that has bled out of him during this fever. I wouldn’t recommend doing it again.”

Jem sorted through his memories for the right person. Not Henry. Henry's was the voice near to Charlotte, speaking too softly for Jem to hear. This was a voice that came with a memory of the scent of coffee. They had met him in a coffee shop while looking for a warlock. Magnus Bane. This voice was Magnus Bane's.

"Is he going to seize again?" Will asked.

"He is as stable as I can make him but I am not a healer, perhaps you might call your Silent Brothers and see what they can do for him," Magnus said.

The word seize brought the memory. The moment of relief and then a sensation that went past pain. His muscles had tried to peel themselves off his bones. The taste in his mouth that had been familiar and then had burned his tongue and his throat like acid. His body had tried to draw in the yin fen faster than it was possible to and every muscle, every piece of skin had rebelled. Then black and silence. Perhaps his heart had stopped.

Jem wanted to give them some sign that he had found his way back but he wasn't strong enough for that. He settled back into the dark but it wasn't the same dark.

It wasn't the empty black, this was sleep and he was glad of it.


	42. twenty four days

The world was shards. There was a weight on his shoulder and something soft against his cheek.

“He’s going to recover,” Will’s voice.

“How can you be so optimistic?” Tessa asked and her voice was thick and choked. The damp spot on his shoulder was tears. Will must have been near her because there voice’s came from almost the same spot. She swallowed back the next sob and pressed her face against his shoulder. He wasn’t sure it wasn’t a dream and he couldn’t reach up to smooth back her hair and whisper promises in her ear. He wanted to but his body didn’t move.

“You haven’t known him as long as I have, he’s too stubborn to give up after coming this far. There is no yin fen left in his body, it’s even starting to come out of his hair. He’s weak but weak isn’t dead,” Will said.

“He hasn’t moved in days, his heart stopped, he was dead for a little while,” she said.

“He’ll make it,” Will said.

Then the world was shards again and no matter how much Jem wanted them back, they were gone. Off into the dark beyond him. He sunk back into sleep.


	43. twenty seven days

She was a cat and she was purring. She was hidden away under the blanket with her tiny body tucked against his side. Charlotte had been to see him and Tessa was hiding. Even after Charlotte was gone, Tessa stayed small and furry and close. Jem hadn’t been awake during the conversation with Charlotte, it was all hazy but he dragged himself closer to consciousness for Tessa.

He concentrated on each individual muscle and lifted his hand. It was clumsy and weak but he dropped it down on top of her back. She made a startled little meow and the purring cut off. Her little head came up, he felt that against his palm but she couldn’t look at him through the blankets. If he were capable of coordination, he would have pet her but he wasn’t so he just held her and she rubbed her cheek against his hand and cuddled in, purring louder. He smiled and dozed off.

He woke to the sound of Will’s voice and he wasn’t sure how much later it was. He was lying in the same position, a hand still on Tessa’s back but she wasn’t a cat any more. She was curled up in a ball with her back pressed against his side. It wasn’t any more intimate than the way she rested her head on his shoulder while Will read her poetry. Like two children cuddled together for comfort. At least it would have been.

Except his hand lay on skin and it made all the difference.

She had been a cat and had changed back, probably when she’d fallen asleep. Now, there was a naked woman in his bed and he had his hand curved around her back where it tapered down toward her waist. Her skin was warm and smooth and her breathing was even. He could very faintly feel her heart beating beneath her ribs.

“Are you wearing anything at all?” Will asked.

She woke up slowly. Lethargic and warm and happy. Jem could have lived his life in that moment. Tessa first thing in the morning was far softer than he had imagined her to be. He couldn’t quite open his eyes but he was aware of her shifting beside him. Unfurling from the little ball she had tucked herself into as a cat that wasn’t as comfortable for a person.

“Oh my god,” she said when she realized what had happened and she drew down into the covers. His hand slid up her side as she moved and even half-dead that sensation of her bare skin against his hand filled up his entire chest.

She was startled and embarrassed but not scared. Will didn’t frighten her at all anymore. Then the embarrassment cut off as she changed. Like all her other changes, the change was impossible to comprehend, his hand knew that she had been human and now she wasn’t but there was no moment in between. She was small and furry and there under the blankets.

“Are you hiding?” Will asked and there was laughter in his voice. “You know, if you crawl into men’s beds while you’re not wearing any clothing, people are going to talk.”

From below the blankets, Tessa hissed. Will laughed again and flipped the blankets up off Jem’s feet and he shivered a little at the cold air. Tessa hissed again. It wasn’t as hostile or angry as the sound might have been. It was more like she was calling him a dirty name. Jem felt her step over his ankles before Will smoothed the blankets back down. She must have dropped to the floor but the cat was too small and too light on her feet to make any sound as she did.

“I apologize for laughing at you,” Will said. A sharp meow and Will laughed again, “If anyone saw me having a serious conversation with a little orange and black ball of fluff, they’d have me committed to an asylum. You’d best go get dressed. I suspect James will be very disappointed to know he slept through having a naked girl in his bed. Or perhaps very relieved. It’s hard to say what would embarrass him on this front.”

Jem wasn’t sure whether or not he was embarrassed but he let himself slide back into sleep with his mind full of Will’s laughter and Tessa’s just woken up soft edges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tessa changing back when she fell asleep and waking up in embarrassing situation is Gidge's fault. She left that one in a comment way back at the beginning of this fic.


	44. thirty days

The tisane tasted like dirt and leather and lemon. Jem did not spit it out but only because Sophie was sitting there in front of him and spitting it out would mean spewing it down the front of her dress which hardly seemed polite. He scrunched up his nose and swallowed another mouthful. It got worse. Dirt and sand and the flavour got sourer no longer lemons but vinegar. He took another sip and Sophie finally let him refuse the next one.  
  
Tessa was standing at the foot of his bed she smiled at him and said, "You make the silliest faces when you are made to take your medicine."

"My medicine is made of old boots," he said and the slurring was better than it had been in a long time.

Tessa laughed at him. It wasn't a carefree laugh but it was bright and Sophie exchanged a look with her, the kind of look between sisters or friends. Tessa wore a dress, a maid's dress not a lady's. It was something she must have borrowed from Sophie and her hair was done up in a simple style and the ensemble did nothing to detract from her beauty. Even though she was wan and pale like she was recovering from an illness, she was beautiful. Guilt rolled through him. He was making her sick. She was sharing in his suffering and that terrified him.

"A bit more," Sophie said and Jem tried to take the cup from her but his hands shook too badly so he begrudgingly let her feed it to him. It still tasted like dirt. It was something from Magnus. An extra bit of energy, artificial and short lived but it was enough that he could sit up and speak and he was grateful for that. He finished the drink as Will came into the room.

"Finally awake are you, you lazy sod?" Will said but the joke was tense and forced. He was worried. Sophie looked between them and then patted Jem's hand before she left. She paused a moment at the door, like she was going to ask Tessa to come with her but must have decided against it. Once she was gone, Tessa came to sit beside him and take his hand in hers. Will sat down on the other side of the bed and leaned his shoulder against Jem's so they were both slouched against the pile of pillows at the headboard.

"How long?" Jem asked, he kept his voice quiet as though whispering would allow him to save energy.

"You're into your fourth week," Will said.

"Have I missed anything exciting?" Jem asked.  
  
"Jessamine is most definitely seeing someone and no one has any idea who. She denies it even as she sneaks about at all hours. It is all very scandalous. A trial date has been set for Benedict, finally, it's three weeks from now. They're holding hearings for Gabriel and Gideon and even poor stupid Tatiana as well. Cecily has started trying to worm her way into going on patrols and Charlotte is going to break and allow it and I am going to have to do something drastic. Henry set fire to something in the garden day before yesterday, I think it was meant to help you before it exploded," Will said, "And I was right, Tessa was behind the issue with the vampires."

"It wasn't that much of an issue," Tessa said.  
  
"She's still full of secrets but I suspect she's trying to dismantle the Magister's plans from within but I haven't been able to get any details out of her," Will said.

"That's because you're a terrible interrogator," she said and she looked at Will with something far closer to affection than the wariness she had always had for him before. Jem looked between them, he leaned his head back against the headboard and considered them both. One or both of them had been there every time he'd woken. They must have spent most of the last month together and somehow it had pushed through her wariness and Will's distrust.

"I wouldn't have thought you two could be friends," Jem said.

"He only likes me because I let him read all his favourite poems to me, even the terrible ones," she said.

"If you listen to him read, you will never stop him, he would read the dictionary aloud given any provocation," Jem said and being able to get all the words out made him feel more like himself than anything else had in a long time.

"I like it," Tessa said with a little smile, "It is one of his few redeeming qualities."

"I have myriad redeeming qualities," Will said.  
  
"Perhaps you should read the dictionary, it would help with your ability to use words correctly. I think you are confusing myriad with some other word, middling perhaps. Yes, Will has middling redeeming qualities, sounds much more correct," she said and Will laughed and made a face at her.

"Thank for being with me through this," Jem said. His hands were too weak to squeeze their hands the way he wanted to but it was enough.

"Whither thou goest," Will said with a shrug.

"I'll be here as long as you need me," Tessa said.

His borrowed magical strength was already fading. The medicine Magnus had sent along wasn't a cure though it had felt like it for a few minutes. Jem pulled on Tessa's hand and she came closer and put her head down on his shoulder. Will filled him in on other going ons of the Institute and Tessa told a story that involved werewolves that Jem didn't entirely understand because he was sinking again. The darkness was climbing back up to meet him but it wasn't as terrifying when he had them both so close.


	45. thirty one days

He thought it might have been the tisane that woke him again but the room was dark. It was the middle of the night. A little bit of moonlight filtered through the window and the embers of the fire glowed dully from somewhere beyond the foot of the bed. He blinked at the dark but couldn't pick out details. He turned his head to the side to find Tessa there. She was awake. He could barely see her face but he could feel her surprise and happiness to find him awake.

"Tess," he said.

"I love the way my name sounds when you say it," she whispered.

"Will said it was dangerous for you to sleep in here," Jem said and his voice sounded papery.

"I'm not sleeping," she said.

"Semantics," he said.

"Shush," she said and her fingers were there at his temple, pushing his hair around. He smiled and closed his eyes but held onto his consciousness. This was worth the price of exhaustion.

"Jem?" she whispered.

"Hmm?" he said.

"I'm going to go to Rome," she said in that soft whisper and he forced his eyes open and she stroked his hair and shook her head, "Not now. But I'm going to go. Once I've put things to rights here, I'm going to leave London. I am going to go and see Paris and Vienna and Rome. Maybe I'll get on a steam ship and go to New York."

He knew he was frowning and she leaned in closer and pressed a kiss to the crease between his eyebrows, "You could come with me. We could make it a holiday. I know you won't leave Will or the Clave and I will not ask you to but Shadowhunters must have holidays, mustn't they?"

"Yes," he said and he smiled into the dark at the idea of taking a holiday with this girl.

"We could start someplace that isn't too far away. We could go to Paris. Just for a week. Stay in a grand hotel and try all the fancy French wines," she said.

He reached out and touched the side of her face. His shoulder protested the movement and he ignored the pain because her skin was soft and warm and being able to feel her smile against his palm was worth it. She cuddled in a little closer and he listened to her plans for a Grand European Tour and found himself caught up in the fantasy and each time she said "we" his heart beat got a little bit stronger. He dozed off to the sound of her voice like it was a lullaby.


	46. thirty two days

He woke up to Will muttering a swear word. He woke up. He didn't surface from the haze of unconsciousness. He woke. It felt different. His vision took a moment to clear. Will was leaning over the bed and he had gently pushed Jem onto his back. He'd been sleeping on his side because he was curled into Tessa.

"You stupid stubborn girl, if you die and leave me to explain it to him, I will find you in the afterlife and make you regret it," Will said and Jem's attention went to Tessa who lay curled toward him. Her hand had been on his chest and his had been on her cheek when he'd fallen asleep. She had stayed the night. He wanted to find that thought happy and warming but he couldn’t, not when she looked like that.

Her skin was ashen and even Will untangling her from the blanket she was wrapped in didn't make her stir. She wasn’t just pale, she was gray. The colour drained out of her and her body limp.

“Tessa, please,” Will said in a very different tone as he rolled her over. She didn’t react to him at all. Not a flutter of eyelashes or a shift of her fingers.

"Will," Jem said. Will's attention snapped to him and Jem blinked until his eyes would focus. Jem didn't have to fight to find the strength to speak. He was still weak but not like it had been for so long, "How much did I take from her?"

"More than she had to give," Will said and then his tone got more reassuring, "She'll recover. She's done this a few times before. She just needs rest."

The words didn't cover the worry and Jem reached out with the psychic connection for Tessa and where she usually was there was only a flicker, like a candle flame burned down to a stub. Jem pulled back from her on the bed so that he wouldn't accidentally touch her again.

"I am going to move her, stay awake, if you're up then you should have some breakfast," Will said. It was just a mundane comment to be said over a half dead girl that Jem almost panicked, almost said something rude and unforgivable to Will but before he could formulate the sentence he caught Will's eye and the worry there wasn't feigned. When he picked Tessa up, he was careful to make sure her head was tucked in against his shoulder and he paused for a moment to check on her before he stood up and cradled her close. She was tall and didn't usually look small but held like that, faded and vulnerable, she looked like a little girl in Will's arms.

"She really will be perfectly alright," Will said and Jem tried to believe the words instead of the look in Will's eyes. Still, it was the memory of that look that lingered after Will had left the room with her.

Sophie came with food before Will came back. Jem ate because if she had nearly killed herself giving him this burst of energy it felt like a betrayal to waste it. It was a watery recovery but still better than he had had in a long time. He needed help to get through breakfast. Though Sophie was professional and distant about it, he still hated needing her help to drink the broth and eat the mashed fruits she'd brought. He said nothing because anything he said was going to be worry over Tessa or complaints over being treated like the invalid he still was.

"Your hair's changing," Sophie said and there was a brief moment where Jem was sure she was going to reach up and touch it.

"Changing?" he asked.

"There's more dark in it," she said, "Is it black or brown?"

"Brown, a very dark brown," he said. "My mother's was raven's wing black but mine was lighter."

"It's coming back," Sophie said.

"That's kind of you to say," Jem said. He was surprised by how little he cared about his hair. He had hated watching it change. Had searched through the silver for the last strands of brown long after it had turned entirely. The silver had been a death knell back then. A reminder of all the hopes he wasn't allowed to have. Now, he couldn't appreciate that hope as much as he thought he should. All he wanted was some proof that he wasn’t killing Tessa.

While he waited for Will to come back, he forced down food and tea and was surprised that the food made him feel better. The hope knocked at his thoughts. He was awake. Truly awake. It had been a very long time. But he was awake because Tessa was lying perfectly still somewhere in the Institute with gray skin and dark circles under her eyes. He didn't want his recovery at her expense.

"Waiting on Master Will?" Sophie asked when Jem glanced at the door again.

He nodded but didn't waste this stolen strength on speaking.

"He sent me up with breakfast for you, I had expected him along in a moment," Sophie said, "Perhaps he got caught up with Charlotte. She's all in a tizzy over this business with Benedict. There are only a few weeks to the trial. As Head of the Enclave she will need to testify and I think it has upset her."

"She'll do well, Charlotte always does," Jem said.

He finally asked Sophie to go find Will for him. He promised to finish the tea if she would find him.

Will appeared not long later looking falsely cheerful. Jem looked up at him from his partially finished tray of food that he had been pushing around since Sophie left. Will sat down on the bed and finished the cup of tea Jem had promised to drink.

"Tell me the truth," Jem said.

"She wasn't strong enough for what she did," Will said. "She's weak but her breathing is fine and she reacts when pinched which Magnus said are the most important things when a warlock has drained their power."

"I won't have my recovery at the price of her life," Jem said.

"She's done this at least twice before and probably a few more that she was strong enough to walk away from and I don't know about," Will said, "It's never been enough to wake you up before."

"Meaning?" Jem said.

"You're strong enough to wake up and you weren't last week," Will said helping himself to something that had tasted like paste and Jem suspected was some sort of yogurt. Will wrinkled his nose at it and dropped it back on the tray in favour of the apple sauce.

"I might make it out of this," Jem said closing his eyes and dropping his head back against the pillows as the hope unfurled like something alive in his chest. He tapped his fingers against the bedspread just to see how the ache in his joints reacted to it. It still hurt but maybe it wasn't as bad. He stilled his hands and met Will's eyes. Will flashed him a bright, real smile and reached out to ruffle his hair.

"I'm going to miss the silver," he said.

"I've still got my borrowed shapeshifter powers, I'll make it silver just for you," Jem said.

Will laughed again. Jem knew he was being distracted. Will was keeping the conversation away from Tessa, on anything but Tessa and that alone set Jem’s nerves on edge but he was still too muddled to force the conversation back around to where he wanted it.

"Will?" Sophie's voice at the door. She stood in the frame and waited expectantly. Jem forgot sometimes that she was a servant.

Will turned back to Jem before finishing his apple sauce and saying, "Rest. I'll be back in a moment," then he disappeared out the door. Jem did as he was told and fell asleep before Will came back again.


	47. still thirty two days

****

He woke up again. Henry was sitting beside his bed tinkering with something that had many tiny gears that he had spread on the bed beside Jem. Jem frowned at them all and Henry didn't notice him. Jem found himself smiling as he watched Henry work, he had laid out the gears so he could pick them up in order and fit them into the contraption in his hand. Something that ran on clockwork but Jem couldn't guess at the function of it.

When Henry realized he was awake he upset his careful line up of machinery as he went to go and get someone to bring Jem something for lunch. Jem couldn't remember the last time he had had so much food forced on him. Charlotte hurried in behind the tray of soup and biscuits.

Jem picked at his food. As long as he what he picked up was light he could manage it himself. Cups of tea and mugs of broth were too heavy for his wrists but he felt almost normal eating the bits of toast while he watched Charlotte and Henry banter back and forth. They talked about nothing, just background noise. The kind of thing you said in sick rooms. Talk of the weather and the going ons of the institute and some new play being put on somewhere in the city that Charlotte wanted to go see but Henry didn’t.

Jem smiled at them and found that he could keep his attention on the words easily. He could put together answers and responses without his words slurring together. He was weak and tired but it couldn’t be ignored.

He was recovering.

The energy that had woken him had been stolen but he wasn’t sure that was what was keeping him awake now. He suspected it was the food and his own body. At some point when he had been asleep runes had been added to his skin for strength and healing and they were working. He could feel them working and though they must have used runes while he had been asleep before there hadn’t been enough strength in him for them to truly do what they were meant to. This was one of his worst days from before. He wouldn’t be getting out of bed, he would only be awake for a few hours scattered across the entire day but his worst days had always passed. This would pass too.

“No one has given me any yin fen, have they?” Jem asked in a lull in Charlotte and Henry’s conversation.

“Of course not,” Charlotte said.

“Did I die when Will tried before? I remember Magnus being here,” Jem said.

“You are not dead, what a strange thing to say,” Charlotte said.

“But my heart had stopped beating. That was the feeling in my chest and the black,” Jem said.

“Yes,” Henry said and then he launched into a long explanation about how interesting the mechanics of human hearts were and how electricity had something to do with how they beat. Charlotte glared at him as though he were scaring a child but Jem let himself drift away in the words and the hope. His heart might be beating thanks to magic and electricity but it was beating. 


	48. thirty three days

Jem woke up again, just as he knew he would to find Will there. Will sat up on the end of the bed, leaning against the foot board, reading. His hair was wet and his greatcoat was slung over a nearby chair with his boots abandoned on the floor beside it. His suit jacket was neat and his waist coat was buttoned. Jem hadn’t seen him well dressed since this project had began. He had gone somewhere and that seemed like a good sign to Jem. If he went somewhere then he believed Jem to be well enough to leave.

“What are you reading?” Jem asked, “Something obtuse and sentimental?”

“I’m reading up on warlock power spells actually,” Will said.

“Is it about Tessa? I’d like to see her,” Jem said.

Will looked at him. His hair was more tightly curled when it was wet than it usually was. He ran his hand through it as he put the book down on the bed. The last month had taken a toll on him and Jem could see the strain of it in his face. Will had been living from worried hope to worried hope just as he had been living from moment of consciousness to moment of consciousness.

“She isn’t awake,” Jem said without needing to be told, “Where did you go?”

“To see Magnus but there isn’t much to be done but keep her warm and wait for her to recover. These spells are apparently all as useful as throwing buckets of water into an empty lake,” Will said.

“You’re worried,” Jem said.

“She knew what she was doing,” Will said.

“That doesn’t make you less worried,” Jem said.

“I love you,” Will said, “You are a part of me, a piece of my soul and better than I could ever be curse or not. I would die for you if I thought it might help but my death could do nothing here.”

“You’re jealous that she’s killing herself?” Jem asked. Will shook his head and looked up at the ceiling for a long time. Jem waited. Will often poured out words like he were a fountain. A poetic, verbose fountain. Jem never quite understood how he managed to make everything sound beautiful. But on the other side of that coin, when he wasn’t spouting poetry, he couldn’t string a sentence together. There was rarely any in between. Jem waited for Will to make sense of what he wanted to say.

“You and I watch over one another. We always have. We have always been two against the world. We may stand with Charlotte and Henry but they are not a part of this,” Will gestured at the space between them and even without an explanation, Jem knew what he meant by it, “She is. She is a part of you. I don’t just mean the magic, this isn’t about a spell. You are a piece of my soul and she is a piece of your heart and that makes her my responsibility. There is nothing more I can do for either of you and I have never felt so useless. I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be and you are not useless,” Jem reached out a hand. Will sat forward to clasp it as they had when they’d drawn the parabatai rune and given this connection between them a name.

“Tell me what you need,” Will said.

“I need nothing more from you. You have always given me what I needed. I had thought when I lost my parents that there would never be anyone else to care for to care for me. We all face death alone but I had thought I would have to walk the road there alone as well. A few years and then I’d be gone with no one to remember my name as more than a line in the archives somewhere. Instead I have had you,” Jem said and he pulled Will so he could lean their heads together before he continued.

“You are my mirror. I see who I truly am in you. The best and the worse. I hope that I can show that to you as well. All I have needed from you is your friendship. You are not useless and you have nothing to apologize for. Don’t be ordinary, don’t tell me you are sorry,” Jem said.

“I will train with you?” Will said echoing the first conversation they had ever had.

“I will stand with you,” Jem said.

“I will, as long as you will have me,” Will said.

“As long as my heart beats,” Jem said.

“It already stopped once and that didn’t get rid of me,” Will said.

Jem laughed. It hurt. His lungs burned and his ribs ached but he felt like becoming himself again was a possibility. He believed, truly believed for the first time, that he would recover.

“Go check on Tessa for me,” he said without letting go of Will. He held him with a hand cupped around the back of his neck. Will’s hair was cool and damp against his skin. He was probably running a fever but he didn’t care, “When she wakes up, tell me.”

“I promise,” Will said.

Jem let himself fall back against the pillows. Almost as soon as Will left, he was losing his grip on the world again. He was still too weak for even that much movement but the day before he hadn’t been capable of it at all.


	49. Home for Me

Once he started to recover, it happened fast. He went from barely breathing to standing up for the first time in a month in only a few days. The yin fen was gone and his body was relearning how to function without it. The addiction burned in the back of his mind but it no longer burned through his limbs. A little voice in my mind promised him that if he only had a little bit then he would be able to breathe more easily. He ignored it because his lungs continued to pull in air without it. He wasn't sure the addiction would ever be gone. Perhaps the want would linger but each time it started to whisper to him, he called up the memory of his chest folding in on itself and Will's horrified voice saying, "I tried." Each time, he pushed it down. 

He wasn't steady and he should not have been doing the sort of thing he was planning on his own. The idea had taken root in his mind and he couldn't shake it. He wanted to cling to this bit of health in case something came along to swipe it back from him. He sat on the edge of his bed with his feet on the ground and his hand wrapped around the poster to steady himself. His wrists were weak, none of his joints felt strong, but he just wanted to be out of the bed for a minute and he had convinced himself he could do it. 

He stood up in one movement, not giving his body time to protest. He had to grab hold of the bed to stay up. He had forgotten how to balance, he felt like he was going to need to relearn how to walk, like a baby starting over again. He had done it once, he could do it again. Babies learned to stand first but Jem was more stubborn than an infant and he wobbled his way down to the bottom of the bed where he caught hold of the foot board where Tessa's claws had left marks. He rubbed at the texture and waited for everything to stop spinning. He had taken three steps and it was enough to make him dizzy. 

"Three is better than nothing," he said to the empty room. 

He heard the door behind him and had a moment to worry about what he was wearing. As rumpled as the pajamas were, at least they covered everything they were meant to. Turning so he could see the door took a moment. He was so poorly balanced that he couldn't let go of the bed.

Tessa stood in the door frame wearing one of her borrowed dressed and looking tired but no longer ashen. Her mouth was open and she didn't move as she stared at him. He cracked a smile and her surprise became something effervescent and giddy. The feeling rippled through him too and he smiled more broadly at her. 

"All the way inside before someone catches you, Miss Fugitive," Will's voice said. 

She didn't just step into the room, she crossed the room in three steps and threw her arms around him. He caught her one armed and grabbed hold tighter to the bed frame before she knocked him over. Once he was sure of his footing he looped his other arm around her and let her be his balance. He was leaning into her and she was keeping him steady with her face pressed into his chest. 

"Have you always been this tall?" she asked. 

"I think so," he said with a little laugh. 

"I'm so glad to see you doing better," she said in a soft voice. 

"You too," he said, "Promise me that you will never do that again." 

"If you don't then I won't," she said. 

"I would appreciate it on both counts, my heart can't take anymore," Will said in a dramatic voice as he flung himself down onto the chair beside the fire. Jem had a moment of embarrassment but Tessa seemed to be immune to concerns of propriety. She didn't pull away from him, she just turned her face to look at Will. Her cheek was flat against Jem's chest as she spoke. 

"We will try to consider your heart in the future," Tessa said. 

"Good, it is a fragile and gentle thing, it requires more consideration," Will said leaning back in his chair with his hand over his face like he was about to faint. 

Jem laughed. His lungs still protested it but it was easier than the last time. Tessa helped him sit, not in bed but across from Will in the other chair. She perched on the arm rest beside him. She was warm, her body close enough to his that he could feel it. 

"Didn't your mother ever teach you how to sit on furniture?" Will asked. 

"It is very likely she did," Tessa said and Will's expression changed minutely before he apologized. Tessa waved the apology away. She meant it when she said she wasn’t offended. Jem was curling this unfettered rush of her emotions around himself. She was calmer than he had known her to be. She wasn’t rushing off or planning escape routes. She was just there. 

"There is something I've been putting off. I didn’t want to leave when you were so sick. If I go to take care of it tonight, will you leave the window open for me?" she asked. She was touching Jem as she talked. She made it seem so casual, like stroking his fingers as she sat there was perfectly normal. Will didn't react to it either. Perhaps it was perfectly normal. They had developed their own rules during the weeks he had been unconscious and he was only now awake enough to be a part of them. 

"Is it illegal?" Will asked. 

"No just a meeting, the meeting will involve discussions of illegal acts but it must happen if everything is to move forward,” Tessa said. 

"Do you need help?" Will asked. 

There was a long pause in which she tilted her head to look at Will. Her emotions were just a little bit wary for a moment but it didn’t last. Jem realized that she trusted Will. That was what the emotion was. 

"I can't ask you to be involved in this," she said.

"He's never cared much about illegal and not," Jem said, "If it's dangerous, if you need the help, take him with you. Will's a pain but he's better than nothing."

"Thank you for such a glowing recommendation oh Parabatai, my brother, my friend," Will drawled and this time Tessa laughed. 

"You're only offended because it is true," she said, "You are a pain." 

"I am in pain, I am much maligned by those I thought were my friends," Will said in a dramatic voice that was almost a wail.   
The chairs were close together and Tessa leaned forward without getting up and kicked him sharply in the shin with a slippered foot. Will made a face and laughed and caught her foot before she could kick him again. It unbalanced her and she fell into Jem's lap. It was a wide chair but not quite big enough for two people. Jem - caught up in their giddiness laughed as well and pulled her in so she settled half in his lap and half on the chair beside him. Her skirts weren't as voluminous as was quite stylish but they still buried them both in pink fabric. She didn't argue him or fight him, she just settled right in where he had put her and pulled her feet in out of Will's range. 

"Take him with you," Jem said to her in a serious voice. His gravity might have been lessened because he spoke into her ear but he didn't care. "I would offer to come but I still find standing difficult." 

"I can't take someone else to this meeting. I am meeting with a member of Parliament, they don't let just anyone one inside," Tessa said. 

"Do we want to know why you are going to this meeting? Or even why they would let a ragged girl like you into Parliament?" Will asked. 

"I'm not going as me. I may have to leave as a cat though. If you wanted to meet me outside with some clothing, it'd be nice to be able to change back into a person," she said. 

"Why do you expect to be running out of Parliament as a small furry animal?" Jem asked her. He was very aware of her breathing and the weight of her body against his. Sitting on the edge of his chair and petting his hair had been indecent. This was scandalous. To hold onto her like this, to be this close to her when they weren't alone had to be breaking multiple rules of etiquette. Unless someone else raised an eyebrow, he wasn't ready to let her go. Will was too busy making jokes and being relieved that everyone was healthy to object and Tessa cuddled in closer when he loosened his hold so she could pull away. 

"I'm going to break a bribery deal that is making a lot of people very rich. There’s been a lot of money changing hands in return for not regulating the import of certain goods. It's a tiny bit of politics that no one would notice but it makes it easy for people like the Magister," she paused and then with a burst of determination corrected, "Mortmain, to import all sorts of drugs. They'll be in session this evening so I should be able to catch the MP I need to speak with in his offices. I don't suspect he will be happy to lose his bribe. I may need to leave quickly." 

"Do you need to borrow a suit?" Will asked. 

"No, I have tailored ones," she said and then she looked between them and her expression was different. Considering and doubtful. There was something that she either very much wanted to say or very much didn't. He could feel her apprehension but not the reason for it. Where his hands were hidden by the mass of skirts around them, Jem squeezed her a little tighter.

"We'll need to stop by my home," she said. 

“You have a home?” Will said like it was a great shock. Tessa’s anxiety spiked and Jem shot Will a look over her shoulder where she wouldn’t see it. 

"It's a secret," she said. 

"Everything about you is a secret," Jem said with a little laugh but in her anxiety she didn’t acknowledge him. 

"I stole the money from Mortmain and bought a house when I was eleven," she said. 

"Do most brokers sell real estate to children?" Will asked. 

"I'm a shape shifter. I became Mortmain. He looks like a 40 year old man. They sold it to him without any trouble. Then I went to one of the accountants, still as Mortmain, and asked that they make sure that the purchase was invisible. They erased it even from his own books. He has so much money, no one was going to notice the price of a townhouse missing from the bottom lines," Tessa said and she didn’t look at either them as she spoke.

Jem could see his own expression reflected on Will's face. Something between bafflement and respect. Tessa was leaning in as she spoke now. She was uncomfortable with this story. Jem pet her hair where it fell down her back like she was a child woken from a nightmare. She relaxed and once she'd started talking, she didn't stop. Her voice was soft, like she was sharing secrets and strong like she had nothing to fear.

"When we were young, Nate and I, we used to tell each other stories of what we would do when we were grown. How we would travel the world together and we would have a house of our own and we'd take care of each other. We wouldn't need the Magister anymore. It was our own little fairytale. But by then, by the time I was ten, we were being prepared. I had always had my magic lessons and we had academic lessons but now I was to learn about being a lady. How to host parties and eat with all the proper forks and dance the right kinds of dances. For awhile I felt special. It felt like a good thing but Nate was learning other things," she explained. 

She wasn't really talking to them as she continued. She was staring past Jem at the fire. Her fingers had tightened around his and he kept his hand on her back as she talked. 

"I was to be Mortmain's wife. That was my role and so they taught me all the things a wife should know. But Nate was going to be a business associate. And so he learned other things. Our lessons were no longer the same. He was so excited about how he would travel to all these different places and do all these so important things. Negotiations and business deals and hunting down important magical artefacts. He no longer wanted to go and be a family again. He wanted to be who the Magister was shaping him to be. He wanted to be powerful and respected and thought that this was how to become that.  I remember asking where I would travel and being told that I would keep the house so it would be ready when my husband returned," she said. 

"I was jealous and angry. I was the special one. I was the one with the special power. I didn't want to be left alone in the Magister's house for the rest of my life. So I went and got one for myself. I didn't realize how easy it would be. I could have bought half of London before anyone noticed. So I started hiding money as well. I made myself a bank account and a little bit of every deal he made went into my account. It was so little from so much but it was enough. I was just a little girl. I bought silly things. I have three pink chaises and a room that is all bookshelves that aren't filled with books and I had no dining table for years but it was mine," she said. 

"No one knows?" Jem asked. 

"I hired a couple who act as my housekeeper, they think I am an eccentric old widow but I pay them more than housekeepers usually make and so they don't make a fuss," she said. "I never told Nate. I believed for a long time that he would come around. That he would come to me one day and say, 'I was wrong and we should leave this place together,' and then I could tell him I already had a place for us. But he never did and so I never told him. I've never told anyone else." 

"Why tell us now?" Will asked. 

"I thought I'd invite you over for tea," she said and Jem chuckled. 

"Why?" Will insisted. 

"Shadowhunters were the monsters of my childhood. Murderers. Disfigured and cruel and capable of impossible and evil things. But they were a distant kind of monsters. The people I knew were other kinds of monsters. Vampires and warlocks, yes, but also true monsters. Men who would whisper about all the evil things they would do to little girls when no one was looking. People who will murder anyone you ask if you pay them enough. Demons, true demons, walked the halls of the house I grew up in,” she said. 

“Everyone has a plan and no one is too concerned about hurting others to get what they wanted. Everyone wants something for themselves. Always. That is how the world is. Morals are for the weak who aren’t strong enough to take what they want. He to me once when I objected to some plan that mundanes were like sheep.. He said it like it was a curse. To be like a sheep. I remember thinking that sheep live in fields and do nothing but eat food and grow wool and sleep in a warm barn with all their friends. It doesn’t sound so bad does it? I didn’t tell him that,” she said. 

Whatever magic had kept her from being able to share what she knew was gone. He could remember the way she’d struggled to share anything back in the Silent City. She didn’t explain it. Neither Jem nor Will stopped her with questions or interjections into her story. They stayed silent when she paused to gather up her thoughts or force upsetting memories back down until she was calm enough to continue. They both waited as she did.

“Jem thought I was one of you when he offered me help but he offered it freely,” she said after one of those long pauses. She turned so she could look him in the face as she spoke, “There is nothing you want from me. Nothing you can gain from me. I make your lives more difficult and yet you continue to offer aid. You worry when I am ill and let me sleep in your bed and share your food and lend me clothing and books and keep my secrets.” 

She curled into him and her emotion pressed up from inside his chest as she pressed against him. She didn’t cry. He sat his chin on her hair and Will watched them for a long moment with an unreadable expression on his face. Jem watched him lean across the space between them and grab Tessa’s hand. It was still tangled up in his own and Will just wrapped his fingers around both of them and squeezed. Tessa looked up at him without pulling away from Jem.  

“If you need me tonight, come find me, I’ll just be downstairs,” Will said. 

And then he left them alone. 

Tessa stayed quiet and she stayed close and still. Jem rested his cheek against her hair and held onto her as he dozed. She made him stronger but he was still tired. She drifted, half asleep as well and she felt safe. Safe and secure and all the feelings that Jem had always associated with home. 

“You are home for me,” she whispered into his chest but he wasn’t sure if he had imagined it or not. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and they stayed like that for a long time. 


	50. Successes

They came back giggling and triumphant. Tessa's glee was what woke him before he even heard them. They might have still been out in the streets of London somewhere when it hit him. Jem couldn't track where they were or what they were doing but he liked to imagine it. Her with that bright giddy smile that she almost never let out of its box and Will staring after her a little baffled like he sometimes was when Cecily was being exuberant. The idea of her out in the streets of London alone made him nervous but knowing Will was there with her helped. 

They came in through the door of his room, not the window. She wore a suit very much like the one she had been wearing the first time he had ever seen her. A man's suit of clothing cut for a lady. Her hair was tied back in a loose braid that had come out a little around her face. Her cheeks were bright and when she saw that he was awake, her smile spread even wider. Will came in behind her wearing a gear under a gentleman's coat and a bemused expression. 

"Go back outside," she said turning to point a finger at the center of his chest. He paused in the act of taking off his hat and the bemusement slipped into perplexed. "Just for two minutes. Go get that book about the helmet for me." 

"You need it now?" he asked. 

"No, I want you to leave," she said.  

Will looked past her at Jem who was sitting on the edge of the bed. He shrugged. He had washed his hair, changed into less rumpled pajamas and generally felt more like himself than he had in a long time. His hair was not as silver as it had been. Sophie had been right. There were dark streaks in it and he'd run his fingers through it until he was too weak to stand by the mirror any more. Then he'd fallen asleep waiting for them to come back so he wasn't as neat as he had wanted to be. 

"Very well, but you had better be on your best behaviour," Will said to her and then cut his eyes to Jem again in a look that was meant to communicate something and Jem wasn't quite sure he understood it.  

"Go get my book," she said shooing him a little with her hand.  

Will paused before he left to set his hat on her head. She had been hatless and there must have been drizzle because her hair was just damp enough to be curling. The hat slipped down and by the time she had adjusted it so she could see, Will had disappeared out the door. She seemed delighted by the hat and paused to set it a little higher on her head by the mirror before she came over to see Jem. She sat down beside him and he reached out to push a damp curl back from her cheek at the same time that she reached out to set Will's hat on his head. 

"It went well?" he asked.

"The MP threatened to kill me and have Mortmain's entire business venture destroyed but with any luck by the time he gets the constables organized for it, there won't be much left for him to destroy. It went perfectly," she said. Her mood would have been infectious even if he wasn't feeling every dip and swing of glee along with her. 

"And why did you send Will away?" he asked. 

She blushed and looked away and then back with that iron determination that sometimes ran through her. She leaned in a little closer to him and she smelled like London and rain and damp wool. She stopped shy of touching him. His hand was still up, that strand of hair curled around his fingers. When she had leaned in, he had pushed the hair back from her face and now he was just shy of cupping his hand around her neck. He didn't. He didn't let go of her hair but he didn't touch her skin either. The last time he had been this close to her, he had ruined it and he was terrified of doing it again. 

"I wanted to kiss you again," she said, "I'm sorry I did it so poorly last time." 

"You didn't," he interrupted her and she laughed again. 

"I did. I ran away. That isn't typically considered romantic," she said. 

"If there is anything I can do to be less frightening, tell me," he said and he finally let his hand fall against the side of her neck. His fingers were still twisted through with her damp hair and the warmth of her skin sent a shiver through him. She leaned into his touch. 

"You are not the frightening one, Jem," she said. He raised his eyebrows at her in question and waited for her to continue. She studied his  face before she did. Her eyes dropped down to his lips for a moment before coming back up to meet his, "I was raised to be a monster and you were raised to be a hero. I wasn't scared that you would hurt me or betray me. I was afraid that I would drag you down into the gutter I live in. That every moment you spend caring about me is a moment that I put you more deeply into danger." 

"You aren't-" he started and she pressed a hand over his mouth and shook her head. 

"I am capable of being better. We all are. I will never be good the way that you are. You are light and hope and fierce beauty all made into one person. But I can more than I was taught to be and I want to be where you are. There is no one I trust more than I trust you. You have left me with all these dreams of making the world better than I thought it was and I want to do it with you," she said. 

"There is no where else I would rather be," Jem whispered. 

She kissed him with a smile still on her lips. He let his hands slip back behind her head and weave through the strands as he pulled her closer. He tried to remind himself to be gentle but any tentativeness she had had during their first kiss had been scattered. Her palm was on his chest and it slid up to his neck then into his hair. Her heartbeat was fast and her exhilaration matched his own. That he was sick, that he had come within inches of a grave stone only a few weeks before, fell away. He pulled her in and she pulled him closer and then in a tangle they were back on the bed. Jem heard the hat hit the floor and couldn't remember if he had been wearing it or not. 

She laughed up at him. She had been lying in his bed for weeks, he had woken up close to her more times then he could count but that wasn't the same as this. Everything spun to a stop as she looked up at him with a soft expression on her face and pounding warmth running not only through her veins but through his as well. She traced his face with feather light fingers. 

"Were you aware that you're beautiful?" she asked. 

"I'm not beautiful," he told her. 

"No, you are, you are required to trust me on this one," she said. 

"Required?" he asked smiling involuntarily. It was like he couldn't make it stop. Her fingers ran along his lips, tracing the shape of the smile. He wasn't sure he'd ever been quite so aware of a piece of his body before. Even when his joints had burned and his lungs had laboured over ever breath, he hadn't been as aware of them as he was of the skin on his lips. 

"Yes, I have been staring at your face for a long time, you're beautiful," she told him. 

"If anyone in this room is to be called beautiful, it should be you," he said and that made her laugh. She curled closer to him as she did with her head bowed against his shoulder as she giggled. He had a hand on her waist. He couldn't remember when he had put it there but he could feel her laughter move through her entire body. 

There was a knock at the door and Jem pulled back up and sat up. He had forgotten that there were other people in the world. Tessa sat up beside him and though he was embarrassed by how close they had come to getting caught, she wasn't. She turned his face back towards her and kissed him again before she went to open the door and let Will back in. 


	51. Magic Lessons

Jem wasn't back to full strength but he was up and moving around the Institute again. His body didn't protest stairs and his head no long spun when he stood up. He wore more iratzes and strength runes than most but they did as they were mean to. He had finally been able to play the violin again though his fingers were still slow. 

He didn't play Tessa her song, the one he had written when she was gone. He wanted to. To play the swoops of an owl in flight and the gentle foot steps of a cat creeping through the dark. He wanted to do that one justice before he admitted to writing her a piece of music. Instead he played her practice pieces and slow movements while she sat with her feet drawn up and watched him so intently that he had to close his eyes to keep his mind on the music. 

She wasn't there constantly but she was there consistently. She was the last person he saw before he went to sleep, though she wasn't spending the night any more. He wanted to extend that invitation but he couldn't bring himself to be that forward. Still she kissed him good night with a smile on her face before disappearing off into the night on silent wings only to show up sometime in the next day. He left his window open so she didn't have to tap at the glass to be let in. 

She swooped into the window in a near dive and then had to stop herself before she hit something. The first time Will saw her do it he had stood up in alarm. She'd landed on the arm chair beside him and twisted her head almost entirely around while he looked down at her. Jem had leaned against the bed frame and laughed at them both. The owl always seemed to alarm Will while he had made a sort of peace with the cat. She sometimes went so far as to sit up on his shoulder with her tail around her feet while he read. She didn't curl up and purr or sleep on Will but she also didn't do that with Jem while Will was there. 

"Will says you've developed some of my magic," she said once she'd changed and dressed. 

"Not anything like what you can do," he told her..

"Would you show me?" she said. 

He considered telling her no. He hadn't shown anyone but Will and it still made him feel less than human. She looked up at him with bright curious eyes and he realized how ridiculous it would be to say that to her. He couldn't tell her that about her own magic. He held her gaze and then closed his eyes and drew up the image of himself in his mind, the one with the purple hair. 

She laughed and he heard her get up from where she was sitting and come to run her fingers through the strands. He opened his eyes to find her very close and smiling. It was hard to feel inhuman while she looked at him with such excitement in her eyes. Will watched the exchange from a distance with the unreadable expression he sometimes had. 

"Can you change your features?" she asked. 

"This isn't changing my features?" he asked shaking the bit of purple out of his eyes as it fell back to the matte near black it had become again. There was one stubborn streak of silver over his forehead that refused to return to the proper colour but nearly all the rest of his hair had changed. His eyes were still shot through with silver but there was a little less each day as his body pushed the yin fen out. 

"Can you change the shape? Make your hair longer or your face squarer?" she asked with her fingers against his jaw as though measuring it. 

"I don't know," he said, "I don't think so." 

"Do you want to try to learn it?" she asked. 

And so had begun the strangest lessons of his life. Over the next week she taught him how to use the magic. It surprised him how much thought and theory there was to it and how similar the lessons were to learning runes had been. Drawing a rune wasn't just a matter of making a shape, it was a matter of calling down the power you needed and then drawing it into skin. A tutor had once said that if you were sufficiently talented at drawing runes you could move your hand and your intention would bring about the pattern. Jem had never been that talented with runes and he certainly wasn't that talented with magic. 

Tessa was a patient teacher and every success delighted her. It was hard but it was just a series of steps. The most difficult part was thinking about himself not as a cohesive whole but as individual pieces that could manipulated one at a time. Isolate his nose and pull up the magic to adjust it. Isolate one eye and change the colour or the shape. 

He kept waiting for the feeling of being something other to set in. This wasn’t a Shadowhunter power. It was magic and it wasn’t right for a Shadowhunter to be able to do it. And while a small voice in his mind kept reminding him of that, it quieted whenever Tessa looked at him. She did demonstrations when he struggled with a change or just to show him how it happened. Sitting with her nose to nose while her eyes slowly shifted in a new shape was eerie but never brought with it fear or disgust. This was her magic and for that alone there was something beautiful about it.

"Do you ever fear that it might be permanent? That your own face might become something else?" Jem asked her once after a lesson when they sat curled together in the arm chair by the fire, her knees over his legs and his arm around her shoulders. 

"I did once," she said, "I remember being terrified when I was small that when I changed into someone taller than me that when I turned back I wouldn't be able to return to being my own size. I would look like me again but I would be a little girl who was six feet tall. But I always come back to myself. My body knows who I am and it returns to it, always. Yours will as well." 

There was a knock at the door and it wasn't the coded pattern that Will and Sophie used, it was simple rapping. Confusion ran through Tessa. She had forgotten that she wasn't truly allowed here and the reminder that she could be caught sent a dark sad feeling through her. The knock came again. 

"A moment," Jem called as her grabbed her hand and turned her to look at him before she could change or hide, "We'll make a plan to tell Charlotte so you needn't hide any more. You deserve the right to be here." 

She flashed him a smile and a grateful emotion and then she shrank down and was gone. Her suit, the tailored gentleman's one that she so favoured fell down onto his lap and the cat struggled out of it. He dropped the clothing behind his screen and then opened the door. To his surprise it was not Charlotte or Henry, it was Cecily and Jessamine. 

"How are you feeling today?" Cecily asked.   
"I'm better everyday, I'm feeling quite well today, thank you," Jem said. 

"You look more like a foreigner with your hair that colour," Jessamine observed. 

"I am a foreigner, Jessie," Jem said but the comment didn't feel malicious and he didn't feel the need to defend against it. He could see his mother in his own face again and if that bothered Jessamine, he wasn't prepared to let it damper the smile it brought to his face each time he caught his reflection. 

"You spend too much time up here all alone," Cecily said, "We've come to rescue you from this unnecessary confinement." 

Jessamine didn't look nearly so enthusiastic about the prospect but somehow Cecily had pulled her along by sheer force of will. There was so much of Will in his sister and Jem chuckled at the oddly matched pair. The lady who had taken to Shadowhunter training like a duck to water and the Shadowhunter who wanted nothing more than to be a lady. Jem hesitated but before he could start making excuses, Will showed up at the end of the hall. 

"You have received a letter and you may not have it unless you come downstairs to have tea with us," Cecily said. 

"Who would send me a letter?" Jem asked. 

"You can find out if you come to tea," Jessie said, "She is truly set on this idea." 

"Shush, Jessamine, come downstairs Mr. Carstairs," Cecily said. 

"Can I meet you there? Just one moment?" Jem asked. And once he'd sent the girls away he went back in to get his jacket and found Tessa sitting on the chair with her tail over her paws. He crouched down beside her and she purred at him and rubbed her face against his cheek. She butted her head against his cheek, pushing against him and looked to the door. 

"I will, you'll be fine alone?" he asked. 

She nodded. It was a very human gesture and he smiled as he pet her ears. 

"I promise you that I will talk to Charlotte, we'll invite you down to tea with the ladies soon," he said and she purred again. He wanted to settle back into the chair with her against his chest, in whatever form she chose to take. Instead, he left her alone to go and play at being a normal member of the household. He would read his letter, eat a scone and then come back to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How madly Jem is in love just makes me happy. 
> 
> I wish we had gotten more Jem POV in Clockwork Princess for the single reason of I want to read more about Jem being utterly in love with Tessa. 
> 
> I may just write a bunch of these little bits of him being all gooey eyed over her.


	52. A Letter

Jem finally pleaded exhaustion and escaped from the endless conversation. Jessamine was full of her usual jabs and commentary and Cecily’s ulterior motives became evident before the sandwiches had been served. She was digging for details about Will. She asked questions intended to be glancing and unimportant but they all led back to Will. Jem had no idea what Will had already told Cecily and what he would be comfortable with her knowing. After so long spent in either silence or the company of the two people he had no secrets from, keeping the conversation straight in his head was exhausting.

He found Tessa, still a cat, dozing on the same chair they had sat on before the interruption. Her ears swiveled but she didn’t open her eyes as he came into the room. Whether it was by smell or some sound, she had known he was coming. He had his letter in hand and put it on the table to scoop her up in both hands and take her place. She looked at him with wide eyes, her ears pulling back like she was glaring at him. He kissed the top of her head and slouched down in the chair so he could put her on his chest.

She had moments where she was less human than others. Like turning in circles a few times before settling down. Jem tried not to look at this thing they had too hard. The spell, the treason, the holes in her stories, the questions he still had and the strangeness of falling in love with a girl who wasn’t always human. He pet her, smoothing down the fur over the top of her head and her back and running his fingers along her paws while she watched him with green eyes.

He almost said something impossible, even when he was speaking to a cat, and he bit his lip. He wasn’t sure what the declaration would have been but he pushed it down and reached for his letter. He hadn’t, to Jessamine’s consternation, read the thing downstairs. He paused before opening it to stare at the seal. It had a pattern of flames on it. He frowned and Tessa got up and came to sit on his shoulder like a parrot. Her fur was warm and soft against his neck as she looked down at the piece of paper.

“Which Lightwood is sending me mail, do you think?” he asked but she only looked at him. He reached up to pet her again before cracking the seal. His little smile fell away as he read the letter. He read it three times. It wasn’t long. The cat wasn’t really paying attention. She was just rubbing her cheek against his hair. Jem reached up and touched her and she turned those glowing green eyes on him.

“Can you be a person for me? I’d like to talk about this,” he said.

She hopped down and when she came back she hadn’t bothered to get dressed properly, she just wore his pajamas again. It felt like it had been a long time since she had done that and the strange sense of intimacy hit him all over again.

“What is it?” she asked. He held out the letter and then slid over in the chair so she could sit down with him again as she read it. She was nearly naked. Just a single layer of cotton between her body and him. She didn’t seemed to notice. She frowned at the letter and read it again. He watched her and waited. She distracted him from everything and he let her for a moment. Let himself stare at her hair and the shape of her face while she read.

“I don’t really understand what he’s asking for?” she said.

“Family lines matter to Shadowhunters. Children can be held liable for the crimes of their fathers. I’ve heard of it being taken so seriously that a wife can be required to stand trial in their husband’s stead including any punishments up to death sentences or exile. Children, spouses, siblings, it doesn’t matter, we stand on the honour of our bloodlines,” Jem said. He spoke softly because he could see her expression shift as he explained it.

“So Gabriel is being put on trial for his father?” Tessa asked.

“With him. At the trial for Benedict, both Gabriel and Gideon will need to prove to the Clave that they are honourable and loyal. They aren’t being tried for his crimes but they are being held under suspicion of being traitors as well,” Jem said.

“Gideon isn’t even living in the country. I learned that much from when I changed into Gabriel. He felt that his brother had abandoned them in some way,” Tessa said.

“A year abroad is the bare minimum expected from a Shadowhunter who has just joined the Clave. Gabriel would have been appointed to another country as well. Gideon has people to speak to his loyalty and good sense from his time in Madrid but Gabriel does not. His friends are all people from his father’s circle, some whom are just as reprehensible,” Jem explained.

“Will you do it? Testify for him?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jem said.

“I didn’t think you liked him much, he doesn’t think you do,” she said.

“He could have turned me in to his father, to the Magister, the night at the party. He chose not to. He helped me home. It’s Will who doesn’t like him. Gabriel is better than his father. I hope he has a chance to live up to that,” Jem said.

Tessa considered him as though he had said something important and profound and he tried to remember exactly what words he had used. None of it had seemed worth the expression on her face. He started to speak a few times, to ask or to argue because nothing about the way she was looking at him felt deserved.

“Is that so surprising?” he asked.

“Not that you would,” she reached out and pushed his hair back from his forehead as she spoke. It was almost a motherly gesture and Jem melted into it, “But why. You owe him, I suppose, I might have gotten you out of that party but I couldn’t have done it as cleanly or as effectively as Gabriel did and he didn’t have to help you. But you aren’t doing it as a debt, you truly believe he deserves this.”

“He’s better than his father,” Jem said.

“Most worms are better than his father,” Tessa said.

“It isn’t a high bar is it?” he said and she laughed.

“Will you be sneaking into this meeting as well?” he asked.

“I wasn’t planning to but I can if you want me there,” she said.

“Can you be here in the morning? Before?” he felt needy and desperate just putting the question into words. He had no right to ask that of her but the idea of testifying in front of the Council, of standing up in front of all of them and leaving out so much of the truth, made him nervous. He would rather face a demon than the politics and all those eyes on him.

“Of course,” she said, “Right now, rest, you’re going to set yourself back if you push too hard.”

“Stay?” he asked.

He had opened the door to that neediness and now it was pouring out but she either didn’t notice or didn’t mind. He pulled her into bed with him and she settled in close so he could press his face against her shoulder. He sighed and fell asleep almost immediately.


	53. Revelations before Breakfast

Tessa hadn't stayed the night. She had gone back to wherever she went when she wasn't with him but when he woke up, he forgot that. He rolled into the warmth beside him expecting it to be her. Will didn't wake up. Jem had a moment of intense disorientation. Will's arm was heavy across his chest. Jem blinked at him a few times and then shifted so he stared up the ceiling. 

When they'd been younger, they'd shared beds often. They both had to fight down nightmares and Jem found that easier to do when he didn't wake alone. The tradition had fallen away as they'd gotten older. Propriety, Will's habit of never going to bed, Jem's deteriorating health, all came together until they slept in their own beds, alone. 

The stress of the impending day had left Jem wanting company and he'd crawled in with Will. Will was bigger than he remembered but he still tossed and turned in his sleep. They were tangled in sheets because Will seemed to twist the bedding around himself until he had created a cocoon and Jem was halfway trapped in it. But still, he didn't get up, not yet. The sun was slanting through partially closed curtains and Jem wanted to just stay here. Warm and tangled and safe. The rest of the world didn't feel real. 

Somewhere in the city, Tessa was waking as well. The sensation of her personality emerging from sleep just made  the moment more worthy of curling up in. He told himself he was waiting for an alarm clock or for Will to wake up but really he was just trying to put off having to dress for the council meeting and Benedict's trial. He wanted to avoid the coming day for just a few more minutes.

Finally, he convinced himself to get up. He struggled out from under Will's arm and went back to his own room to dress. He'd started putting on weight. It felt like it had happened overnight. Dark hair, brown eyes, and at least ten pounds heavier than he had been a month before. Health had come out of no where. He was going to need new clothing. He was still thin but not as thin as his shirts had been designed for. 

"You can't go out looking like that," Will said. 

Jem didn't turn around. He was tying his tie in the mirror when Will had barged into his room, "You should knock." 

"You can't go out like that," Will repeated as he pulled the chair around to sit down on.

"Don't," Jem said. 

"What?" Will said. 

"It's covered in cat fur, don't sit there in a suit," Jem said without turning around. Will sat down on the chest at the foot of the bed instead. Jem turned and raised his eyebrows at Will, "What is wrong with what I am wearing?"

"Not the clothing. You look well," Will said. 

"I know, I haven't felt this well in years. I had forgotten what it was like to be this healthy," Jem said. 

"The Clave doesn't know. We haven't reported anything yet. You can't go to that meeting looking like that. It will bring up too many questions," Will said, "How long can you keep the magic in place?"

Jem turned back to the mirror and frowned at his face. It was still a little bit unfamiliar. The little boy he had been was still there in this face and so was the face he had been looking at for the past few years but together the two made a stranger's face. He closed his eyes and called up the old face. The silver hair, the paper skin, the eyes that glinted like coins when light hit them. He opened his eyes and grimaced at it. 

"Can you hold it all day?" Will asked crossing the room to adjust his tie for him and study the magic. It felt like lying and Jem was suddenly exhausted by all the lying. He wanted to drag everything out into the open. He wanted everyone to know who Tessa was and what he could do and how incredible she was. He pushed his silver hair around and reminded himself of all the reasons he couldn't. 

"I don't know, is it worse if I lose it?" Jem asked. 

"Don't do that and we'll be fine," Will said. 

"Inspiring, thank you," Jem drawled. 

Downstairs at breakfast. Henry caught sight of Jem first and his eyes widened in alarm. Across from him, Charlotte was looking at a pile of papers beside her dish of oatmeal. She caught Henry's expression and turned to look over her shoulder with a frown on her face. 

"Jemmy," she gasped out and pushed away from the table to come over and grab his face and pull it down towards her. 

He hadn't considered this. He had forgotten that she didn't know. He and Will were explaining in overlapping voices while her expression went from alarmed to annoyed to furious. When they'd both stopped talking. She just looked between them with lips pressed so tightly together they were white around the edges. 

"Are there any more secrets you've been keeping?" Charlotte asked. 

"A few but one revelation is all I can handle before breakfast," Will declared and pulled Jem away from Charlotte and pushed him into a chair before anyone could say anything about Tessa. Surprisingly Charlotte let it go but kept shooting Jem worried glanced as they ate. He finally decided to give her the entire show, change his hair from one colour to the next before settling it back to silver. It meant spending the rest of breakfast with Henry asking detailed questions instead of Charlotte staring at him. He wasn't sure that was an improvement. 


	54. The Trial

Benedict's trial would be carried out in the Gard Hall. Jem had never seen a trial held that publicly before but then Benedict Lightwood was charged with high treason and consorting with demons. It wasn't a typical trial. Jem was surprised by the number of people who had come out for no imaginable reason beyond gawking at the spectacle of it. The evidence and the sentencing and the defenses his sons had prepared were going to take up hours. 

"It has been 143 years since someone was charged with high treason," Will whispered in his ear. 

"Are they going to kick his sons out of the Clave?" Cecily asked after the orders for the trial had been read out. She was seated on Jem's far side and she asked him though it was her brother who answered. 

"They might, it's within the rights of the Clave to remove an entire family," Will said. 

"They're adults so they will by tried for their own crimes," Jem corrected, "Gideon and Gabriel will have to defend that they did not collude with their father in his illegal dealings. They'll call witnesses, which Benedict won't be allowed. And then there is Tatiana, she isn't 18 yet but she married Rupert Blackthorn and the Blackthorns have the right to protect her as one of their own. If they choose to, she might be the only one to make it out of this," Jem explained to Cecily who frowned at the dais. He spared a thought to how she saw the Clave but she didn't comment further on it. 

They weren't the only ones whispering and the Inquisitor waited until the hum of conversation fell away. Jem had been spared the need to do more than testify to the Silent Brothers up until two days before when he had received at letter from the Institute in Madrid.  Gabriel had asked him to speak on his behalf in light of the party. Now he would have to stand up before the Clave and tell this room of gossip mongers dressed as Shadowhunters the story. He needed to do it without mentioning the ritual or Tessa. If he did a poor job of it, Gabriel would be the one to get his runes stripped before he was thrown out into the street.

Benedict deserved punishment. Gabriel didn't. Jem believed that completely. The anxiety of being even partially responsible for convincing the Clave of another person's fate like this - amid politics and legal details and so many watching eyes - had been eating at him. 

The list of charges read out was comically long but no one was laughing. Jessamine, sitting at the end of the row beside Charlotte, looked bored. Will had already asked her twice why she had bothered coming. She had just pulled a face at him and refused to answer him. Even without a curse to blame, Will hated to be ignored and they picked at each other like cranky children all morning. 

Jem needed some place to focus his thoughts so the settled where they always did, on Tessa. She had promised to be back by nightfall but right now she was hidden away behind a change. He had started to piece together what she did with her life but there were still so many questions and some many vague answers. 

He pushed thoughts of her away and focused on Benedict who sat behind the Inquisitor. The man looked ill. Not just unkempt but pale and with glassy eyes. Some people did not stand up well to the Silent City and Benedict seemed to have taken it quite badly. 

Jem didn't look much healthier but it was all stolen glamour. He felt fine. He felt good and dressing up in his silver hair and pale skin left him feeling dishonest. He shifted in his seat so his elbow was against Will's and Will glanced at him. Neither of them said anything but Will answered him by leaning in as well. Invisible to anyone watching, just a little bit of pressure where their elbows touched but it helped ground Jem enough to breathe normally. 

The Inquisitor stopped talking as the doors at the back of the hall opened. Jem frowned in annoyance at the distraction. The afternoon was already crawling and the idea that the trial would be completed in an hour was absurd. He turned to look, expecting messengers or latecomers or maybe a protester come to demand Benedict’s immediate execution or release or some such thing. 

It was none of those things. 

An automaton, blank faced and unclothed, stood in the doorway. 

"Again?" someone muttered like it was a minor inconvenience. 

The single metal man stood to the side to make room for a pair carrying a large box balanced between them. Witchlight glinted off bronze as the room rustled and everyone stood. The automatons were spindly metal things with none of the trappings of clothing to make them more human. Smooth metal heads. Slits in place of eyes and mouths. Moving together they were far more like a great metal spider than men. 

“The pyxis,” Will said followed by a very creative swear word. Jem was frozen along with everyone else. The last time an automaton had entered the Gard Hall it hadn't done any damage and everyone seemed to be waiting to see what would happen this time. Jem's attention darted around the room in case he would catch of sight of Tessa wearing someone else's face but no one looked back at him. He pressed at the connection but the change she was behind was like a wall. 

"Is that our pyxis?" Charlotte asked sounding just a little bit offended.

They carried the box of demons down the steps. Someone took a swing at them and the clang of metal rang across the cavernous room. Yells of warning followed and the attack wasn’t repeated. A pyxis couldn’t be opened by anyone but a Shadowhunter but Jem wasn’t keen on discovering what happened if you set off a pair of explosions on either side of it. 

They ground to a stop on the steps at the end of Jem's row just beside Jessamine. She stood and didn't shrink back though her shoulders were tense beneath her blue dress. Unease filled Jem. He grabbed Cecily's arm and pull her up as well. She protested and he ignored her. Will already had a blade in hand and was facing the enemy but Jem pulled her in the other direction. The people on her far side, a Mr. and Mrs. Majumder from the Dublin Institute had already stood. Jem pushed Cecily out past them and into the other aisle. 

"Out that door, to your right, one of those doors is a weapons room. Get heavy swords not seraph blades, things are about to go very wrong," he said pointing and then shoved her towards the door. The last thing they were going to need if this went as badly as he feared it was about to was an under-trained fourteen year old girl with no sense of self preservation. He didn't push back into the row but he turned to look at the pair of automatons with his sword unsheathed from the cane. They were going to have to start coming to the Gard more heavily armed if these things kept happening. 

"You have to understand how important this is," Jessamine said and Jem's heart jumped into his throat. She was speaking to Charlotte but her voice was pitched loud enough for the entire room to hear her. 

"What is important?" Charlotte asked. 

"He explained it to me. How important it is, how it will make everything better. He wouldn't lie. He simply wouldn't. He loves me and we're going to do this together. The Nephilim need to be punished for all that they have done," she said in a flat voice. 

"Stop her," Jem said and though he wasn't the only one moving or yelling at Jessamine, none of them were fast enough. Charlotte grabbed her but Jessamine still managed to get a hand on the pyxis. It was easy to open if you were a Shadowhunter. It didn't even require a stele, just a panel to be lifted and a rune to be pressed in the right place. Jessamine could do it in the time it took Charlotte to grab her by both arms and wrench her away. 

A pyxis wasn’t meant to be out of the Institute. It didn’t carry any safeguards with it. It was meant to be kept in a secured circle so that even with the door open, nothing could get out while a new demon was pushed in. There was no circle here. There was no protection. Everyone pulled away and Jem heard more weapons being drawn.

As the little panel slid open, one of the automatons ground out in a rusted baritone, "As you slay others, so shall you be slain. Your angel cannot protect you." 

The first demon slid out in mist. Charlotte still held Jessamine but she wasn't able to budge her. Jessie was rooted to the spot, staring at the mist as it coalesced on the stairs beneath her feet. A heavy black fog rippling around the lace at the bottom of Jessamine's dress. Charlotte tried to pull her away from the smog. 

People were moving around them.

One of the automatons was hit by someone with a broadsword and it staggered and fell. The pyxis tumbled out of its grasp and crashed to the floor. It rolled down the steps in heavy ringing thunks. Even in the chaos of the hall, the sound was impossible to ignore. It was still seeping that tendril of demonic spirit which was gathering itself together and started to take form. 

Henry helped Charlotte spin Jessamine around. Though they were both yelling at Jessamine, she didn't react. The smoke drifted back up the stairs from the pyxis where it had come to rest below the dais. Will pushed past Henry and Charlotte and picked Jessie up around the waist and swung her away from the demon. It had a shape now though it was still misty and half formed. 

Jem readjusted his grip on his blade but before he could move he was hit by a wave of horror that cut off his air for a moment. He swung around. Not his feeling but Tessa’s. Somewhere, she had realized what had happened. He pushed her feelings to the edges of his mind and put all his attention on Will. He locked onto the connection designed for battle and tried to ignore Tessa. 

Will had dropped Jessie into the row below them so she was sprawled across the benches in her fancy dress. It might have been funny. Her all tipped up on her back with her feet sticking out akimbo from her ocean of petticoats. Will turned away from her and he had his weapon out. He wasn’t the only one. He was the only one who looked away from the monster in front of him. He gave Jem a look of relief when he realized that Cecily wasn’t standing behind him. 

The nearly complete demon lunged at Jessie while Will’s attention was turned but someone else was there with a sword. The demon howled and Jem was suddenly aware that he was in the middle of what was about to become a war. That mix of fear and exhilaration that came with the start of a fight washed through him. He dropped down onto the bench below and pulled Jessie farther from the attack. She was babbling about how important it was that this be done. Jem ignored her. She curled up on the floor with her back to the bench. 

“Jessie, you need to leave,” he said. 

“It’s important that I see it through, so important, so important, he said so, he loves me,” she said.

Jem felt the tug of Will’s attention. The parabatai bond reminding him that there was a battle going on. He took one more moment to push Jessie in under the bench. She didn’t fight him but she also didn’t help as he shoved her in and down. Then Jem turned and fell into step beside Will. The nearest demon was gone in a splatter of ichor but below them, near the spilled pyxis still pouring out demons, the battle was raging. 

“Unto the breach?” Will asked. 

“Shakespeare? There is a pyxis full of demons leaking out inside the Gard Hall and you’re quoting Shakespeare? You do realize we are facing an invasion of Alicante here?” Jem said but they were already moving. Will tossed him a grin that was dangerous. Jem stared back at him but something inside him answered the grin. He was headed into a battle and for the first time in his life he wouldn’t have to track his strength or fall back to catch his breath. 

There was a piece of him that was looking forward to this fight. He let that corner of his mind rush forward. This was the kind of battle he had been born for. The Nephilim were warriors and for the first time in a long time he could feel through every muscle what that really meant. He flashed Will an echo of that dangerous smile and adjusted his grip on his blade. 

They moved down the stairs in one motion split across two bodies. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is specially dedicated to Jessaislife for leaving a comment in which they expressed something along the lines of "I hope everything goes well at the trial" :)


	55. A True War

It was the kind of battle that got written into history books. Jem hadn't imagined ever living through something like this. The demons trickled out of the pyxis. It was slow but they had no fear of dying and every intention of keeping the little gate open to let out as many of their brethren as possible. Every dispatched demon disappeared back to another realm. 

The Shadowhunters were sending them home. 

They were myriad. These were the demons that couldn’t simply be killed. A slain demon could cross back into the world again and these were the ones the Clave hadn’t wanted to risk ever seeing again. Greater demons and the particularly dangerous were locked away in the pyxises of the Institutes to protect the world. Any one was a threat on its own. One that had climbed out of the fog early was a flying abomination with a wingspan more than twenty feet across and now it flapped over their heads. It had eaten at least two people that Jem had seen. 

Adrenaline sung through Jem's veins. It could have been terror or excitement. Will at his side hadn’t lost that dangerous smile though it had flattered as a woman to their right had been lifted off by the winged demon. The image was horrible but it was the scream that had burned its way into Jem’s mind and had tried to pull up other memories of a woman screaming. He blocked out his mother's voice and forced himself back into the fight. 

He and Will circled and held their own among the older Shadowhunters. They were still children in the eyes of the Clave but it didn't mattter as the battle raged. A demon with arachnid eyes scattered across its otherwise human face fell back in a tangle of shrieking limbs before collapsing down into a smear of ichor on the already slick stone floor. Jem and Will fell back as the next wave moved in. It was a tactic they'd learned in classes but it was a tactic for a true war and they'd never seen it used before. The skirmishes they had considered battles up to that point seemed like child’s play now. 

Jem buzzed with energy but fell back as he was meant to. They fell back to take a moment to breathe until they had to step through into the fight again. He took a minute to scan the room. There was a line of archers at each door way so the winged monster above them couldn't get out of the room. It was huge and the gust of wind pushed down off its wings as it darted around another volley of arrows, pushed Jem's hair back. 

His hair wasn't silver anymore. He'd lost the magic in the battle but couldn’t remember exactly when. The demon above banked and Jem's attention snapped up to follow it. For a brief moment it was the greatest threat in the room. He watched it swoop towards the archers at the back of the hall before it crashed to the ground with a shriek. An arrow had hit it somewhere vulnerable but it wasn't dead. It struggled up on great clawed feet that ripped through the wood of the benches with each step but there were already Nephilim moving in to reduce it to ichor and gore on the floor. 

If he hadn't been looking up, he would have missed her. She came in through the back of the hall, down the passage way that led from London. She wore a suit unbuttoned and disheveled. A man's though she wore her own face. Jem let her emotions in. Panic and terror and worry and guilt.

It was a room full of demons. Blood and ichor and flashing blades. Screams and curses and the clang of metal against scales and claws. Seeing it from her side, Jem almost let the panic take him as well but he couldn't afford that so he pushed her out. It was hard. Her emotions wanted to wind through his and he didn't practice stopping her often. Usually he let himself sink into it but he couldn't be that scared and still hold onto his sword. He pretended the connection wasn't there. It was harder when she stood in the room. 

"Is that Tessa?" Will asked with incredulity in his voice. 

"Yes," Jem said. 

"She needs to get out of here," he said and he surprised Jem by taking off at a run towards her. 

Jem wavered for a moment. They had a position. The line wouldn't fall without them but they had a position and they were meant to move back into the fray. But Will was halfway up the stairs and something else with wings was taking form in the center of the fray where demons were still oozing out of the pyxis. Jem wheeled and went after him before could leave himself utterly undefended. 

"Go home," Will said as soon as he got a hold of Tessa's sleeve and wrenched her around to look at him. Relief and another wave of horror hit Jem even through his defenses. She had prepared herself to find them all dead. 

Her panic shook Jem’s training again. Dying was a possibility. He knew that and had known it since he was small. Known it vividly since he was eleven years old. She had never had to come to that acceptance. Not about him or about anyone else. She was a criminal, braver than most but her panic in this made her more naive and younger than she usually seemed. 

"What happened? It's opened? I thought it was impossible to open," Tessa said. 

"Not for a Shadowhunter," Jem said and she turned a look on him that broke through his defenses again. The focused guilt took him a minute to sort through, she felt personally responsible that he was in danger. Jem felt a spike of anger. She had the pyxis all this time, she could have returned it. Everything else she was capable of but she had never done that. 

"Why haven't you closed it?" she asked. 

"It's in the middle of that," Will pointed behind them where the new winged demon was still insubstantial but pulling itself into the air nonetheless. Horror washed through Tessa followed by a feeling that made Jem grab her arm and twist her around so he could look her in the eye. She met his gaze and held it.

"Get out of here," he said. 

"I can get through it," she said putting the feeling into words. 

"No," he said at the same time that Will said, "Absolutely not." 

"Am I Shadowhunter enough?" she asked, ignoring them. She thrummed with horror. Jem couldn't imagine feeling that emotion and making the decision he could feel building in her. He had been through hell and he'd come out of it with the ability to turn the fear off. This wasn’t as bad as the day his parents had died. Since that day, fear had started to be something of a choice. He was aware of it, he just didn't truly feel it. At least not about himself. Tessa felt it. She was terrified and she was still talking about pushing into the center of the fight. 

"You aren't doing it," Jem said. 

"I opened the door to the Institute. There is no one in this room who would accept me as one of them but that doesn't matter. My blood is Shadowhunter blood. I could open it and I can close it as well," she said. 

"No," Jem said. 

"No, I can't, or no, you don't think I should?" she asked. Stubborn and defensive.  

“How?” Will interrupted Jem’s argument. 

“I have only done it once but I can change into one of them. A monster. A demon. They won’t turn on one of their own,” she said. The words came with a rush of disgust that rose nausea in Jem's stomach.  

She was staring past them again, looking at the chaos and Jem followed her gaze. It was a losing battle. It wasn’t lost yet but the Nephilim couldn’t win it. Jem ran through the possibilities of sealing the hall, of calling in enough reinforcements but nothing would help if the Pyxis wasn’t closed. The Pyxis at the London Institute was one of the oldest in the Clave. Close to 500 years of demons, most of them Greater Demons, had been pushed into it over the years. Most Shadowhunters never saw even a single Greater Demon in their lives let alone ten or fifteen. There would be no surviving the hundreds still waiting to push their way out. 

“We would have to get you past the Shadowhunters first,” Jem said looking back at Tessa. 

There was iron in her and in spite of her fear, he believed in that moment that she could do it. Jem caught her face in his hand and pulled her attention back from the fight. His glove left a smear of blood on her skin and it made him stop. 

He was about to drag her into a war. She looked at him and just her expression was enough to remind him that he wasn’t dragging her anywhere. She didn't stand a chance against the battle but they could get her in and they could pull her out again. He caught Will's eye because he wasn't sure he could do it alone but together they could keep her safe. 

“Some men want their wife to be a delicate flower but I chose the raging inferno and I have never regretted it,” his father’s voice came up from his memories. His mother had laughed at him and thrown something heavy at his head over the comment. Jem had forgotten it. Tessa Gray was his inferno. Will was standing right beside them, the fight below them continued to rage, but he kissed her. 

“Move as fast as you can, those are not mindless monsters, they’re as smart as you and I are, they will figure it out. You haven’t got long. All you need to do is slide it shut, it will lock itself once the door is shut. Are you sure you want to do this?” he said in a rush with his forehead against hers. He didn’t need to ask but he did. 

“Yes, I can do this,” she said. 

“Stay between us,” Will said though he looked even more unhappy about the idea. 

She did as she had been told as they made their way back down towards the fight. The riot of fear in her got worse as they got closer to the battle but her resolve didn’t waver. Something was burning and the acrid smell made Jem’s skin crawl even more than the blood slicked floor or the sounds of screams and metal on metal. With her to protect, that electric thrill of battle had fallen silent. This was hell and he wanted nothing more than for it to be over.  

They found Charlotte and Henry in the fray. Henry’s left arm hung limp at his side, possibly broken or something worse. Charlotte's dress hung tattered and scorched down one side but there didn't appear to be any blood. They were back in the wave about to move in again. Henry noticed them first and nudged Charlotte to turn her to see them. 

“Where is Cecily?” Charlotte asked when she caught sight of Will. 

“By the back of the hall, handing out weaponry,” he said. At the mention of her name made him whip his head around to try to catch sight of her but they were too far into the battle to see anything beyond it. Jem hadn’t seen Cecily since he sent her out of the hall before the fight had started but he trusted that Will knew exactly where she was. 

Charlotte’s attention fell on Tessa but before she could put the alarmed look on her face into words a blast of magic shot out of the battle in front of them and they all had to drop down. Someone, Tessa perhaps, screamed. The magic slammed into the wall behind them and the brick shuddered. It didn’t break through. 

“The orange one, stop it,” someone screamed over the din as a second blast shot out of the knot of demons by the pyxis. They were trying to break through the wall. The third blast opened a little patch of sky as ancient stone work rained down on the battle. It was nearly dark. The trial had started in late afternoon and the sun had sunk down so there were more stars than glow beyond the wall. 

“Tessa can close the pyxis, we need to get her close enough,” Jem said to Charlotte. The battle surged around them, the organized fronts falling into one melee trying to stop the thing sending  blasts of magic out of the chaos. They needed to stop it from opening the hole wide enough for something to escape into Alicante. It was also the perfect moment, both sides too distracted to notice one girl pushing between them. 

“We could all close it, no one can get through, they’re defending it with their lives,” Charlotte said. 

“She’s got a better chance than the rest of us. We are about to attempt it. We need to keep the two side's clear and get her close,” Will said. It wasn't sarcasm. He talked back to Charlotte all the time but it never sounded like that. This wasn't a little boy talking back to his big sister or a willful recruit lashing out a ranking officer. Will spoke like the leader he always pretended he wasn't. 

Charlotte and Henry exchanged a look in one of those rare moments when they were utterly on the same page. They fell into a defensive formation around Tessa. They were silent against the din of the battle though Charlotte obviously wanted to ask more questions. Tessa caught Jem’s eye but there wasn’t any time to say anything else so he gave her a smile and then they were moving through the fight. 

To the Shadowhunters, they were all but invisible. Tessa’s was not a recognizable face. Though everyone in the room knew her story, few had met her. No one was paying close attention even if she had been wearing a sandwich board announcing her identity, they would have let her through. 

The battle around them crashed and screamed. Above them, more bricks fell but Jem didn’t risk looking up to see the size of the hole. There were too many dangers right in front of them. Something with a barbed tail caught a man to Jem’s left in the chest. It pushed through his body as easily as a knife through butter and then the monster on the other end jerked him away with a scream. Blood hit his face like warm rain and in spite of a lifetime of training and battles, he shuddered. 

“Ready?” Will said and Jem almost answered him but he was talking to Tessa. 

“Yes,” she said with a nod and a surge in that mix of fear and determination she was sharing with Jem. 

“Fast,” Jem reminded her and she gave him a little smile. 

This change was horrific. It wasn't the rippling reflection of a pond, it was like watching a monster submerge from the depths and consume her. She didn't so much seem to become as to be swallowed. The changes sputtered and she was herself again for a split second and then there was only the demon with a harsh hungry smile on its face. 

It was nearly human. It looked almost like a man. Eyes red and dark as a pit. A mouth full of sharp teeth and malice in ever line of its face. Jem stared at it and had to fight down the desire to hack at it until it let her out again. That was ridiculous. It twitched. A battle somehow between its will and Tessa's. She won and it moved past Jem toward the fight. Hissing with glee at the horror around it. 

Jem couldn't watch her passage. He had to spin to fend off an attack before he could see anything else. Will was still pushing along with her and Jem heard him yell something but it was lost like so much else in the fight. 

He didn't turn to see either of them and the thing in front of him was all teeth and great thumping tentacles that kept reaching for him to pull him in. It knocked him back and his boots slipped on the blood smeared floor. He hit the floor on his back and lost his breath for the instant. That was all it took for the demon to get a tentacle around his leg. He let out a yell and swung his sword towards the thing in front of him. Will grabbed his arm and stopped his slide towards the mouth of teeth. 

Henry was there, one armed but fast, in the gap to push the demon back into the wave of Shadowhunters. Ichor exploded and sloshed across the already black floor. Jem scrambled back to his feet. Will caught him and pulled him up. In a moment of disorientation and disgust, he stepped back from the spread of the liquid like it could still hurt him. 

He pushed the panic down and fell back into formation beside Will who hadn’t let go of his arm yet. Will pulled him down again as something whipped by them. It was huge and the downdraft from its wings pushed Jem’s hair into his eyes. A demon with leathery bat wings and talons long enough to lift an adult swooped up above them.

Jem looked to the hole in the wall. It wasn’t big enough to allow the thing through on the first attempt. It slammed against the wall like a moth against a lantern shade. Almost comical. Talons biting into the hole before it pushed off again. It shook itself and banked around the hall until it was traveling fast enough to smash through the damaged brick. It left a massive hole in its wake. The fight around them started to change. It was now a two front battle. 

“Where is she?” Jem asked and Will joined him in whipping around, looking for Tessa. She wasn’t herself so Jem couldn’t feel her. There had been enough time. I

t was either done or she was dead. That would explain why he couldn’t feel her as well. He took a step toward the pyxis though he couldn’t see it. Will shook his arm and pointed up. 

An owl had broken out of the battle. It wheeled in the air, small and bright against the dark stone and the smoke. Jem took a deep breath of relief. He watched her turn towards the hole in the wall and the empty sky beyond it. His eyes followed her toward that gap. 

 The arrow hit her before she could drop out of sight. She was outside the wall so when her body fell, it fell away outside the building.


	56. Bleeding Out

“Tessa?” he didn’t yell. He said it like a question but she wasn’t there to answer it. 

"Come on," Will said grabbing his arm. They were running and Jem had a moment where he wasn't sure where they were running to or why. Then he remembered the little white and gold shape falling and the panic he'd been able to keep at bay when it was his life in danger ricocheted up through his chest. They ran for the Alicante exit and they weren't the only ones. The doors were flung open from the team that had gone to hunt down the escaped demons. 

Will led and Jem kept to his heels. They'd broken away from the fight but no one stopped them. Charlotte and Henry had let them go with a yell that Jem hadn't been able to make sense of. They didn't head down into the city, they swung around the edge of the building and into the gardens. The plume of smoke rising through the hole was at odds with the clear sky and the sprinkling of stars over carefully manicured lawns. Rubble was strewn across the grass and Jem's eyes caught on a gargoyle covered in blossoms from the tree it had fallen through. Pink petals against a shattered face.

"She's not here," Will said. 

"She has to be here," Jem said turning around to scan the grass. 

They weren't alone here, the archers who had taken up defensive positions outside to keep anything from getting out were still in a line. They cast quick glances at the two of them but their attention was on the gap in wall. Five people and one of them had shot her. Jem didn't spin on them and say any of the things that were boiling up in him. They had no way of knowing she wasn't a threat. The sick feeling in his chest had nothing to do with them. 

"What happened to the owl?" Will asked. 

"We lost the shapeshifting bastard in the bushes down the south, it became something fast, there's already a team after it," one of the archers said. Before Jem could say anything, Will shoved him towards the bushes. It wasn't gentle but it snapped Jem back into the problem at hand. The archer let off another shot toward the hole and whatever had been trying to climb out was knocked back. Their attention was no longer on Jem and Will. 

"We need to find her first," Will said. 

"I know," Jem said and he stopped. 

They had been running and Will wheeled ahead of him to look back. He rummaged in his pockets. He had left a feather in one of his jackets and he couldn't remember if it was this one or not. He held it out and Will handed him a stele. He wasn't sure where his was. He scrawled the rune on the back of his hand. For a moment he was sure it wasn't going to work because it couldn't find the dead. 

Then he knew. He took off at a run and this time Will followed. Jem still had the stele clutched in one hand the crumpled feather in another when he nearly ran into a horse. It stood outside a large carriage house and it pawed the ground and snorted at Jem as he went by. 

"She's in here, I just can't tell where," Jem said looking at the building. There was blood. It had been churned into the sand by the horse as it had clamoured by but it wasn't gone. Jem's heart flipped. He still couldn't feel her but the spell was telling him to keep moving forward.

"Tessa?" Will called out softly as he pushed open the door.  

They found her in the back of an empty stall, probably belonging to the panicked horse she had released. She wasn't in her own body. Ashen and breathing shallowly, Gabriel Lightwood was curled in the corner of the stall. He was naked and had an arrow through his upper chest, just off his shoulder. 

It wasn’t a killing shot but there were runes on Shadowhunter arrows. She was a warlock not a demon but runed blades would do damage to just about anything, even another Shadowhunter. A few inches to the right and it  would have gone through her heart. The wound gaped around the shaft of the arrow. Changing had torn it wider. The damage done to the owl made worse by the change in size.  

"Tess?" Jem said and Gabriel's green eyes blinked up at him but didn't focus right away. There was a lot of blood. Blood slicked down from the wound and across the floor. The hay was wet with it. When she caught sight of him she reached out a hand, forgetting that it was the damaged arm. She made a small pained noise and let the hand fall to the ground. 

"If she's Gabriel, can we use an iratze?" Will asked. 

"Take it out, please," she wheezed. Then she changed again into an unfamiliar man. He looked healthier than Gabriel had but the wound started bleeding more profusely as the change made the arrow shaft shift in her shoulder. She let out a little cry before gathering her strength to speak, "A new body will be whole but I can't take it out. I tried and I made it worse." 

Jem knelt down in the blood. She had multiple bodies to bleed out. There was more blood on the floor than a person could survive losing but each change gave her a new reserve. He whispered to her, explaining each step, warning her when it would hurt. He snapped off the fletching in the arrow and then eased it out of her back. It had gone all the way through which was a small mercy though the expression on her face said she wouldn’t thank him for saying so.  Will stood by the door, ready to give warning if anyone came looking for her. 

She collapsed into Jem's chest once the arrow was free. She was herself before she started to fall. Exhaustion rolled through her. She had held her change through at least two near deaths and it had taken most of her strength. Her hair fell around her and he wrapped her up in his jacket, ichor and blood soaked though it was. 

She was still bloody but she had told the truth, the injury had been in the old body. Her own body was whole. He might have felt relief but with the change came the rush of her emotions. She was pale and exhausted and her emotions were a riot. 

Disgust and horror and pain and fear and despair. 

So much despair. 

Jem wrapped his arms around her and pulled as close as he could. She leaned hard against him as though sitting up on her own was too difficult. He hadn’t thought of her as hopeful until it was gone. She was wrung out, body and soul and Jem could feel it pulling on her. Pulling hard enough that he felt it in his own chest. Like the world was losing colour and it didn’t matter. He had stopped her panic from destroying him during the battle and he locked her emotions agai 

"How do we get her out of here?" Will asked. 

"As a cat," he said, "If she's that small, we can tuck her into a pocket and just carry her out."

"I'm not strong enough for that," she said into his shirt front. The despair was an ocean and she was drowning in it. 

"Yes, you are," he said, "You were inside a demon Tess, those whispers are coming from it not from you. You shared your mind with a monster from hell and you beat it. You closed that door. This city will still be standing tomorrow morning because of what you did. You are strong enough for anything. You can pull strength from me. If you can't find that strength right now then let me be strong enough to take you home." 

She stared at him. Her eyes were wide and empty and her face pale and blood spattered. He held her gaze and tried to push back at the despair. It didn't budge but somewhere inside her she was rallying herself. She was shaken, not broken. He waited for her to collect herself enough to nod at him. 

"You're not going to be alone," Will said and she looked up at him. Her cheek stayed pressed to Jem's shirt and Will looked back at her with a serious expression. Her attention bounced back and forth between them for a moment before she took a few shaking deep breaths and changed. Jem felt her pull on him as she did it. Once the change was in place and a blood smeared cat sat beside his knee, the drag was gone. 

But she had pulled hard. 

Jem understood in that moment how much of a disadvantage the spell put on him. She had never truly used it before. He couldn’t have stopped her if she had tried to pull every last bit of strength out of him. He wasn’t sure he would have tried. 

She was still blood smeared as a cat. The blood sticking to her fur and making it stick out in little tufts. There was a sound outside the carriage house and she shuddered beside him. He scooped her up in the jacket and told himself it wasn’t really treasonous because she wasn’t really an enemy. No matter that everyone else thought she was. If he let himself think that thought all the way through he knew he was going to have to face the fact that he would protect her even if she was. 

“Fix your hair,” Will muttered and Jem did as he was told though it seemed futile after having had it dark throughout most of the battle. He didn’t remember when exactly he had lost the change. He hoped no one had been paying much attention to individuals. He certainly hadn’t been. 

 The team came through the back door, having doubled back in search of her. 

“Something was here, it’s hurt,” Will said and the use of the word it made Jem want to flinch but he kept his reactions to himself. He wanted to point out that it was blood, not ichor or that demons would heal faster than that or anything else that might prove that she was not a monster even to these people. The four people who came through the door were already discussing the same things but they were asking questions about shapeshifting and looking for evidence of where the monster they wanted had gone. 

Jem didn’t register who any of them were until Gabriel Lightwood grabbed his elbow. Jem blinked up at him feeling foolish and stupid for a moment. Tessa’s hazy emotions and weakened state were still dragging on him and the adrenaline that had kept him moving during the fight had faded as well. He was surprised to see Gabriel looking healthy if ragged and a little blood smeared. He almost said something about it before he remembered that it had been Tessa and not Gabriel he had seen bleeding to death.  

The other members of the team moved around Jem without him being able to focus on them at all. They talked about the broken arrow and the blood and Will had to answer all the questions they asked. Jem was going to need him to explain it all later because otherwise their lies were not going to match up.  The searchers moved on to go through the rest of the building but Gabriel lingered.  

“However the trial goes from here, thank you for agreeing to speak on my behalf today, I owe you for that,” Gabriel said with utter sincerity. 

“I believe that you are a better man than your father, Gabriel. I did not agree to speak for you as a favour, I agreed to it because I thought it was the right thing to do,” Jem said. 

Gabriel looked at him for a moment and seemed unsure of what to say in response to that so he simply said, “You should go back to the hall, Mrs. Branwell was looking for you.” 

Then Gabriel was gone after the search team, up into the loft, following a smeared blood trail through the straw. Between Jem and Will and the horse she had released, the trail was a disaster. It would keep them busy for a little while. Jem stared down at the blood. The world was fuzzy around the edges. It wasn’t like his weakness from the poison that had run through his veins half his life, it was different. He didn’t hurt but the world was washed out. 

“Are you going to faint?” Will asked. 

“I hope not,” Jem said.

“Whatever she did to you, don’t let her do it again,” Will said.

“She needed it, I’ll be fine,” Jem said with more force but he still let Will take Tessa from him. He tore a hole in the lining of his jacket and dropped her inside so she could hide in the pocket there. Jem just left his ruined jacket in the blood pool and put a hand on Will’s shoulder as they headed back toward the Gard. 


	57. Aftermath

Inside the Gard Hall, the battle had come to a close. Without reinforcements even Greater Demons weren’t a match for that many Shadowhunters. Two had escaped. The one Jem had seen and then another after that and they were still waiting on reports on whether they had been found and what damage they had managed to do to Alicante. 

The Hall itself was destroyed. The pyxis had been righted but still stood at the bottom of the stairs. The worst of the ruin was gathered around it at the edge of the dais where claws had gouged the stone and ichor and blood pooled into any low surface. A fire had been put out along the east wall but the soot streaked banners still hung from the ceiling. They fluttered weakly in the night breeze from the gaping holw in the wall. Benches had been torn loose and scattered around as though by clumsy children.

There were more people than there had been when they had left. Men and women wearing gear and unstained clothing were milling about and helping tend the wounded. Jem saw Silent Brothers moving among them as well. That thrill of battle was gone. The anger that came off the assembled Shadowhunters was palpable. Not grief, but rage. There had never been a true threat to Alicante and the knots of men around the destroyed automatons were planning war and retaliation. 

“Cece,” Will said with a sigh of relief. Jem hadn’t been looking for anyone in the crowd. He might have been staring right at Charlotte for all the details he was taking in. He followed Will across the hall to where Cecily was standing with her back to the room. Here, along the wide sloping ramp that ran up either side of the hall, bodies were lined up. 

An errant bit of lessons came back to Jem of how those lost in battle would be cremated in a special ceremony. One great pyre held on the battle field and surrounded by banners and mourners. His distracted mind wanted to know if they would hold it here in the Gard or if it would be held somewhere nearby. Funerals were rarely held inside Alicante and it seemed wrong to hold one indoors. 

“Damn it,” Will said quietly. 

Jem turned back to him. Cecily was looking up at him. She had a burn on her cheek that was already healing and her eyes were wet though she wasn’t crying. Her hair a disaster of half fallen twists and curls, her dress in disarray. She looked small. Not like a young woman but like a little girl. She answered his swearing with her own and Will dropped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his chest.

Jessamine lay on the ground in front of them. She lay on her back with her bloody hair stuck to her face. She would have hated to have been seen like that. Her eyes were shut but there was no mistaking it for sleep. The rest of the bodies were separate from her. No one had forgotten that she had started this. She had opened that box and the Nephilim would always blame her. 

“Why did she do it?” Cecily asked, her voice muffled in Will’s shoulder, “How did she even know how? She hated everything about being a Shadowhunter.”

“Because she met a boy and fell in love,” Jem said softly, “That’s why she wouldn’t tell you anything about him.”

“Who?” Cecily demanded. She pulled back from Will and glared at Jem like it was somehow his fault. Maybe it was. 

“Nate, Thaddeus, he probably introduced himself as Thaddeus. I've met him. He tried to use a spell to enslave me. He had this big story about wanting to make his sister happy. But that was a lie. What they truly wanted was a Shadowhunter under their thrall. It didn’t work with me. I got away before he could finish it so he went out and found Jessamine instead. He was handsome and blonde and mundane and full of big dreams. She would have believed him right up tot he point that it was too late,” Jem said. He knew his voice was flat, almost empty. 

All these people were dead because of Nate, because of Tessa, because of him. There must have been something more they could have done to stop it before it had began. His fingers shook and he curled them into fists. Will gave him a look over his sister’s head but Jem ignored it. He needed to talk to Tessa. He needed to find some way to fix all this. 

Will pulled Cecily away from the dead and Jem trailed along after. He was starting to get his sense of the world back. His anger was burning through the haze like sunlight on a foggy morning. It was a directionless anger but it was hot and bright. He reached out and as casually as possible, touched the lump in Will’s jacket where Tessa was still shivering. She stilled under his hand and he took a piece of that moment of calm like it was something he could breathe in. They could make it better. If they were all together, they could find an answer.

“The three of you should return home. This is no place for children,” a voice behind them said. Will and Jem turned to look at him and without glancing at Will, Jem knew how unfriendly his expression would be. His wasn’t any better. The man behind them was the Consul. Jem straightened just a little and tried to drop the worst of his rage off his face, Will didn't. 

“This one isn’t a child Uncle,” a man Jem vaguely recognized said and pointed at Cecily, “She stabbed a great scaly demon through the neck. You’re lucky that ichor burn isn’t scarring your pretty face.” 

Will looked down at Cecily with alarm in every line of his face. She gave the man a bit of a smile but her thoughts were not on acts of bravery any more than Jem’s were. Her dress was stiff with the dried ichor and the iratze on her neck was already fading as it took the burn with it. Jem hadn’t noticed. There was so much horror and destruction in the room that a burn and a ruined dress were hardly worth noting. 

“She is fifteen and should return home. I will be sending Horace Penhallow to oversee any matters of administration that might arise before a new Institute head can be assigned,” the Consul said. 

“What?” Jem and Will spoke at almost the same time. 

“Where is Charlotte?” Jem asked. 

“The Silent City. She has lost her leg. She expected to make a full recovery but until she does, she will be in no state to run an Institute and Mr. Branwell is with her in the Silent City while she is in surgery. Horace is at the door, you can be no help here, leave,” the Consul said it in a definitive voice. For a moment the three of them stood there and looked at him. Jem turned away first. 

He didn’t speak to Horace when they passed him on the way to the door. Horace Penhallow was in his fifties and wore gear. He must have come from the city in answer to the call for help from the Gard. He looked annoying well scrubbed beside the three of them in their tattered and blood stained clothing. He wasn't exhausted or burned out. Jem wondered if anyone he cared about had lost a limb or been left laid out in a row on the floor. Horace attempted to make conversation, small talk about London and the Institute and no one responded.  

Will, in a low voice, switched to the rambling syllables of Welsh and started talking to Cecily. Jem assumed it was about how she came to be stabbing demons in the neck. They stepped out into the drizzle of London. Jem stood beside Will while they waited for their carriage to arrive. He could feel Tessa between them, tucked away in Will's coat and still shaking. London was dark but the rain felt good, like it could wash away the worst of the day.

They headed home and through the carriage window London looked the same as it always did after dark, wet and gray and calm. It should have looked different. He had felt like that after his mother and father had died, that the world should have noticed somehow. But the world didn't notice. People noticed but the world just kept spinning on. He leaned against Will who had given up arguing with Cecily and was sitting in sullen silence. Hidden away between them, Tessa fell still and Jem let himself doze for just a few minutes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who find the writing process interesting: Originally I was going to kill both Gideon and Henry (as well as Jessie - Jessie was never going to survive this) in this scene. Gideon got cut entirely, we may find out whether or not he survived later on. I was going to do this extra subplot that brought Gabriel to the Institute (because without Gideon, he wouldn't have gone back to Madrid) but it was too many plot points so I axed it entirely. 
> 
> Then I decided killing Henry was too upsetting for me (because Henry is my fav) as well as for Jem and company - the emotional fallout of killing Henry would have been bigger and messier and pushed the story far longer. We are pretty close to the end here. So instead we have serious maiming instead of death.


	58. Meetings and Secrets

****

On the ride back to the Institute, no one said a word except for Horace who seemed to feel the urge to speak more on everyone else’s behalf. Jem slept through some of his chatter and stared out teh window through another chunk of it. He was drained and emptied out and every time he closed his eyes Tessa was falling with an arrow through her body or his imagination was calling up Charlotte’s injury though he hadn’t seen it. 

His own guilt and Tessa’s were beating their way through his chest until everything had started to see worse than it was. The change was usually a heavy enough wall to keep it all out. He couldn’t tell if that barrier was incomplete or if he was just imagining it all. 

On the steps of the Institute, Will shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it into Jem’s arms. He made it look careless and rude enough that Horace felt the need to tell him all about the proper respect one paid to their parabatai. Jem cradled Tessa in against his chest and gathered the fabric around her so she was invisible. He ignored the lecture as much as Will did. 

The Institute looked quiet until the doors opened. Sophie paused when she saw the doors opening, she had been hurrying across the entry way carrying a basket full of what looked like gear. She looked annoyed until she recognized them. For a second Jem thought she was going to drop the basket and fling herself into their arms but she didn’t. 

“Welcome home, there are sandwiches and tea in the dining room,” Sophie said. 

Horace was talking about maids and how the London Institute didn’t have enough for the number of people who would be arriving that night. Jem blocked him out and paused beside Sophie to tell her, “Charlotte’s going to make a full recovery. She’ll be back by tomorrow evening. It’s nothing to worry over.” 

Sophie looked relieved but someone in the depths of the Institute was yelling and she rushed off before she could ask anything else. Jem had never seen the Institute like this. Even the largest hunt he’d ever seen hadn’t been this kind of chaos. The building was full of strangers, some of them as battle torn as he was and some of them wearing their suits and still others wearing battle gear. 

Jem went upstairs without talking to anyone else. He pulled Tessa out of the jacket to find that the blood had dried her fur into little spikes. He held her against his chest for a moment and she purred at him before wiggling free. He put her down on the bed and she wavered like she couldn’t stand up. 

She changed without disappearing behind the screen and when she was herself again, she was curled on his bed cover, blood streaked and exhausted but alive. Her emotions hit him all over again. A torrent of formless darkness. He had just been imagining them before. This was far stronger.

There were things to be concerned about. He needed to change his clothes, he needed to know what the legion of Shadowhunters downstairs were planning to do, he wanted to know exactly what was happening with Charlotte. He pushed all that aside and wrapped her up in as many blankets as he had then lay down beside her. 

“You are incredible and you will make it through this,” Jem whispered to her. He pushed her hair, stiff with dried blood, away from her face and whispered to her until he felt her emotions start to slip. She was going to have nightmares but at least she was able to fall asleep. Jem wished he could do the same but instead he dragged himself changed his clothes and then his hair and trudged back downstairs. 

He fiddled with a pair of gloves as he slipped into the chair beside Will and listened to them talk about Jessamine like she was a turncoat on a battlefield. Somewhere in Charlotte’s notes and reports was enough information about the mind control spell that Jem didn’t need to bring it up himself. While they sat there, murmuring their own commentary back and forth in Chinese, the first runners came in from searching the Lightwood house and shortly after them a second team from the ruins of the Dark Sister’s laboratory. 

They brought back a mass of materials. Most of them things that might be used for tracking spells. Other things pieces of evidence like bits of automatons that Henry hadn't deemed worth investigating. It was a large heap of garbage on a table in the middle of the library.

“And it isn’t even my birthday, you needn’t have gotten me so many gifts. Oh look an old boot, nothing like an old boot,” a voice at the front of the room said and Jem leaned forward to get a look. 

“Magnus sounds oh so pleased to have been dragged out of bed for this,” Will muttered. 

“He looks like he came from some sort of party,” Jem said.

Magnus wore an expensive suit with bright red trim that should have looked ridiculous but he managed to make look elegant. He glowered and ran tracking spells on the pile of garbage, flinging things he deemed useless into a heap in the corner that Sophie was going to have to pick up later. The number of things that might be used to track down anyone involved was small and Jem doubted that any of them would lead back to the three people the Clave really wanted to find. 

Nate had attended the party but Jem doubted he had ever been at the laboratory, especially since Tessa had had so much trouble finding it. Mortmain likely didn’t get his hands dirty with the actual building of the automatons nor was he likely to have left personal objects at the Lightwood’s home. Tessa had only been at either place briefly and nothing in either pile was the dress she had been wearing that night though it must have been left behind. 

Jem noted it all with a buzz of relief.

Jem’s usual guilt over keeping Tessa’s secrets was completely gone. She had saved their lives and nearly died for it. He no longer doubted that he was doing the right thing in protecting her. She was in and out of sleep and each time she woke, she pulled all his attention. All those left over emotions from the demonic change would rush in around him. He held his temper and his silver hair but each time was harder. 

“Come with me,” Jem finally said, grabbing Will’s sleeve. There was so much else going on in the room that they were able to slip away without anyone even bothering to look up. 

Will raised his eyebrows in a question.

“That ridiculous meeting will go on until dawn,” Jem said. 

“Aren’t you the patient one? I feel a little slighted that you are taking my dramatic exits from me,” Will said. 

Jem stepped to the side and extended his hand to tell Will to go along ahead of him. They were in the empty hallway and Will shoved him in the shoulder before storming off. He made it more exaggerated than it needed to be. They didn’t go to the dining room. They went directly to Agatha who gave them sandwiches made with chicken that was still warm and Will managed to weasel an entire chocolate tart out of her. 

They took the food back to Jem’s room. Tessa wasn’t there. The bed was empty. Her nest of blankets thrown off to the side. Jem stared at it a moment before heading across the hall to find that the room she had been given by Sophie had the door flung open and some visiting Shadowhunter’s things dumped on the bed. 

“No one’s raised an alarm, she might be with Sophie,” Will suggested before Jem's panic could take off. 

They didn’t find her with Sophie. They found her in Will’s room. She sat in the middle of Will's bed with a book open in her lap and looked up at him as he entered the room. She had cleaned up. The blood was gone and she wore men’s pajama’s that Jem didn’t think were his. Which meant she had probably come down here as a cat and stolen them from Will.

"I thought poetry might help," she whispered. Her despair was still a dark, draining thing in her. "The first time I was only the demon for a few seconds. I didn't think I would be able to do it at all and even that long had felt like I was going to lose my mind. This time was far worse.” 

She squeezed her eyes shut and closed the book. Jem came over and wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap. He sat up against the headboard of Will's unmade bed and she lay her head down on his shoulder and matched her breathing to his. Her hair was soft and still damp from her bath and he pressed his cheek against the top of her head and they drifted together for a few moments. 

“It liked it. It liked all the blood and the fire and the people in pain and I was inside it and I liked it too,” she said. 

“You shouldn’t have been wandering the halls when there are this many other people here,” Will said sitting down at the bottom of the bed and spreading the food out on the blankets between them. 

"I wanted a book. You told me I could borrow them," Tessa said and if she had been herself, it might have been a joke but in her drained state it came out as plaintive. 

"How are you?" Will asked. 

"As well as I can be," Tessa told him. 

"Charlotte has come through her surgery. There apparently wasn't a leg left to reattach but she's no longer in danger of bleeding to death. She and Henry will be back here tomorrow, no notice yet on when we will be rid of Horace," Will reported as though Tessa needed to know. Jem suspected he was saying it for himself. Jem had done the same thing, reminding himself over and over that she would be fine. That always brought up the reminder that Jessamine wouldn’t be. Jessie wouldn’t be coming home. 

They ate in silence, Tessa’s fingers shook but she ate her way through three sandwiches while still leaning against Jem. He was just as hungry and the food that Agatha had told them was “far too much” was gone far too fast. Will passed Tessa a piece of the pie and she shook her head. 

“You should have some chocolate, it’s good for you,” he said. 

“I hate chocolate,” she told him. 

“I’m going to have to kick you out of my room, that’s unnatural and disturbing,” Will said helping himself to a bite of the piece he had offered her. 

“Of everything about me, it is my dislike of chocolate that you find unnatural and disturbing?” she asked but Jem could feel humour pushing through at the edges of her despair. Will laughed and finished eating her share without offering Jem any. 

They sat together without speaking for a little while and then Will reached out and picked up Tessa's abandoned book and started to read. He read aloud and the poetry rolled right past Jem without having any meaning but it eased something tight and terrified inside Tessa. She relaxed by degrees, each new stanza pulling some extra bit of horror out of her. Jem pet her hair and closed his eyes. 

"I had to be sure," she said in a break between poems. 

"Sure of what?" Will asked. 

"Of the pyxis," she said. "I am so sorry." 

"Tessa?" Jem said. 

"I was told so many things about the Nephilim while I was a child. About all the evils that they, that you, perpetuate and there were so many lies. So many of those things were lies," she paused and pressed in a little closer so she spoke into Jem's chest, "But there are tombs underground where you hold your prisoners. There are among you eyeless monsters who can take the thoughts right from a person's mind. That much was true." 

"The Brothers," Jem started and she cut him off with a little spike of feeling that might have been anger though it was swallowed by the other feelings running through her like a splash in a river, there and then gone.  

"And you tell me all the reasons that they are as they are as though it improves it," she said without lifting her head. 

"You can change into a person and pull the thoughts from their heads," Will countered. 

At that she did pull back. She wrenched herself loose of Jem's arms and turned on Will with her eyes bright and her hands clenched in the fabric of her shirt. Her knuckles were white and her eyebrows drawn together but Jem still couldn't sort out her feelings. He wasn't sure she knew what was driving her reactions either. 

"I am a monster," she said. "I may hope to be better, try to be better but I have never pretended to be other than a monster. I am a warlock. I am the child of one of those things that tried to tear you all limb from limb today. One of them made me. I could never be other than a monster." 

Jem reached out for her, trying to put together the words that would calm her but she was pulling away, standing up and pacing over the book shelf before spinning back around. Her hair was loose and swung like a curtain around her. She looked like a child but her expression was fierce when she turned back to look at them.

"And you have defended me as well. You have told me that I am not as bad I imagine myself to be and I am grateful for the kindness but it doesn’t erase anything. I could have asked about that damned box. I tried to ask but I was terrified that I would have to hear you defend it. You would tell me why it was necessary and I wasn't sure I would ever be able to trust you again," she said. 

"You don't agree that putting demons in a prison is a necessary thing?" Will asked with sarcasm dripping off his words. He was tired and angry and worried and his old patterns were right there to rise up and swallow his kindness.

"Spirits of your enemies.No one said anything about demons. The Magister's plan was to take the spirits you had stolen and put them into the bodies of the automatons so that they could live again. I was afraid it would be tortuous to live inside a metal body but maybe that would be better than being trapped, a ghost inside a box," she said.

"You thought they were prisoners," he said. 

"I didn't know. I couldn't give it back and I couldn't lock them into the automatons with a nearly unbreakable binding spell until I knew. I didn't know how to find out. There was nothing in his libraries or in the libraries I knew how to get into. I can't go in there. I would have been found and they would have sent me back to the Silent City. So I kept it. I kept it until I could be sure that what I did was right. But then this happened," she said. 

They were all standing now. Will and Jem close together near the bed and then her standing by the bookcase with her hand on a shelf. Jem started to bridge the distance, started to assemble things to say. 

"How many died?" she asked before he could touch her again. 

"It's still being calculated," Will said, "It might be as many as fifty." 

Tessa looked like she might cry. Jem didn’t touch her again. She was too defensive to pull in close no matter how much he wanted to do it. He looked over her head at Will who frowned at her. He was calculating. His expression drawn and his lips tight. Jem had missed something and he let his expression ask the question.

"It can be left until morning," Will said in Chinese. 

"No, just out with it," Jem said. 

Tessa was watching Will as he started to assemble what he wanted to say. She didn’t understand the language but she seemed to have some idea of what they were discussing without it. Will looked at her for a moment before he started to speak.

"If he had Jessamine, why not just complete the spell? He could have used her to open the pyxis, he didn't need you," Will said. "An army of automatons could have done even more damage than one oozing pyxis. Imagine a hundred demons in metal bodies instead of ten confused ones climbing out into a battle where every weapon was designed to destroy them. It was a horror today but it could have been worse. It could have been a massacre."

"This was Nate, not the Magister," Jem said, "It was a tantrum. A show of force." 

"Yes, but why did the Magister let it happen? This is a plan he has been building for years. He started training Tessa to participate in it when she was six years old. That is at least ten years and the designs for the automatons must have began even before that. How did he let a petulant bastard like Nate Gray take his pyxis and run off with it?" Will asked. 

He was closing the distance to speak directly to Tessa now, "How have the two of you gotten away behaving like this? Has he truly not noticed that you keep your own house, your own hours, impersonate him and sabotage his plans? Has he not noticed your brother playing with dangerous magics as though they were toys on his chess board? Is the man alarmingly stupid?" 

"No," said Tessa, "He's not stupid."

"Then what is he? Just very busy with other plans for destroying an entire race of people? Is he also after the werewolves? Did one of them insult his mother?" Will asked. 

"He's dead," Tessa said. 

They both turned to stare at her and she turned around and dropped herself back on the edge of the bed and looked up. 

"I should perhaps start at the beginning," she said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I often use fic to explore things that I find are missing from canon. The London Institute in 1878 is a major seat of power in a Clave at its full height. This isn’t the remnants of the Shadowhunters after the Circle. This is probably one of the most powerful eras for the Shadowhunters - having just solidified the Accords, with mundane expansion probably correlating to the building of new Institutes. That we never get to see the Clave mobilize for war is kind of disappointing to me. 
> 
> In this world Mortmain and the Automatons are not a “London Problem” that Charlotte can be expected to handle on her own. They’ve made serious attacks on the Clave. The Silent City and now the Gard itself. The Silent City attack would have brought about some sort of retaliation but Jem didn’t find himself in the middle of it. This though. This is the Clave preparing to go to war. 
> 
> I’m really enjoying this bit - this chapter is so late because I had to sit down and revamp it because they wouldn’t have gone back to an empty Institute - they would have gone back to an Institute like this. 
> 
> Also I have been sitting on this reveal forever. Eeeeeeee.


	59. Dead

"Pardon me?" Will asked turning around to look at her, he had been pacing in his agitation. 

"He's dead. He's been dead for almost three years now," Tessa said. She was exhausted. Jem could feel it but she drew herself away from him and stood at her full height as she said it. Shoulders back, chin up, braced for whatever came next. Her despair took on an edge of grieving as though she had already lost something important. She didn't look at Jem.

"How did he die?" Jem asked and she reluctantly turned back to meet his eyes before she spoke. 

"I killed him," she said. She held his gaze, waiting. He didn't have any idea what sort of expression he was giving back to her. 

"Perhaps it might be best to start at the beginning," Will said. 

Tessa pushed a pair of trousers off of one of the chairs at Will's little table and sat down. The table itself was piled with books like every other flat surface in the room. She leaned against it for a moment and then sat back with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. Will swung one of the chairs around from the fireplace and dropped himself into it. He looked drained but curious. Jem sat down across from her and he was pretty sure that he looked nothing but drained and exhausted. 

Tessa took a deep breath and then closed her eyes before she began to speak. 

"I was taken in, taken, by the Magister when I was a little girl. I wanted to be the person he was training me to be. I tried hard to learn the magic and the manners and the skills he wanted me to learn. I wanted to be special. I was beaten for misbehaviour and I have been whipped when I couldn't learn a spell but all children are subjected to discipline," she said and Will was frowning at her but she ignored them both. 

"I was twelve the first time they asked me to kill someone. Asked isn't quite the right word. Instructions were given as though there was no way I could fail to follow through with them. I did fail. I panicked before I could and before they punished me, they hurt Nate. Promises were made that if I failed then he would be the one to die in place of whomever I spared. I don't know, even then, if I trusted my brother anymore but he was my family and I loved him," she said. 

"And you did as you were told," Jem said. He leaned across the table and held out a hand. He didn't touch her but he let his hand lie there if she wanted to take it. She didn't. She still wasn’t looking right at either of them. 

"Yes. Until I didn't. I couldn’t. Not that time. There are awful things. Evil things. Then there are unforgivable things. Things even I couldn’t do. I went back having failed a mission and told Nate that he should leave before they found out. He didn't believe me. He didn't believe that Mortmain would ever threaten him like that. He thought he was special,” she said, “He wasn’t.” 

“You saved the ungrateful rat’s life?” Will asked. 

“Yes,” she said and even through the rest of the darkness in her, Jem felt the shadow that memory cast. He kicked Will sharply in the shins when he saw him start to open his mouth. Asking how it happened was just going to horrify her even farther. 

“He was the closest thing to a father I can remember ever having and I killed him. We didn’t know what to do so we hid it. It’s not so difficult when you have magic. He was covered in protections but he took me into a little room, just the two of us, and calmly explained to me all the ways I had failed and all the things that would happen as a result. He didn’t think to be afraid of me even though he had trained me to kill men twice my size,” she said.

She fell silent. She was lost in a memory that was painful enough that Jem felt it like an ache in his chest. She shook herself back into the moment and looked between them. 

“The Pandemonium Club very nearly runs itself and when it needed Mortmain, I could be Mortmain. I would change and I would sign the papers or attend the meetings or devise the strategies using his own mind. So we just did as he had done. We were children but we didn’t see any other choices. There are those loyal to Mortmain who would have murdered me for killing him so they could never know. It was surprisingly easy,” Tessa explained. 

She shook her hair back from her face and then after a moment of stillness ran her fingers through it and pulled it over her shoulder. She combed it through with her fingers and then twisted it into a hasty braid. It was an anxious quirk that Jem hadn’t seen from her before. She let the ends start to unravel as soon as she was finished and then looked up at him, waiting and expectant. 

“You followed through with his plans, you kept up the creation of the automatons, you planned the assault on the Institute, you took the pyxis. You did it as though he were there directing every step, even from beyond the grave,” Jem said. 

“I believed you were evil, all of you. You were worse than he was, I knew that. I had known that all my life. It never occurred to me that it could be wrong,” she said. 

Jem slid the table out of the way, it grated along the floor and he knocked one of Will’s piles of books down doing it. He pulled his chair closer to her and reached out his hands. She stared at them like they were foreign artifacts. He looked at her and waited until she reached forward and held out hers. She didn’t touch him first. He took her hands and pulled them in so he could hold them between his. 

She let out a breath. Shaky and scared. Not of what she had done, not of taking over a massive criminal organization before she was old enough to put her hair up, that was an old fear. She was afraid of making them hate her. Jem ignored Will. If Will hated her for this, Jem wasn’t ready to see it. 

“You are the greatest proof of a person’s ability to change to have ever existed. I don’t despise you. You needn’t have done this on your own. If there is anything you need from this point forward, in this or anything else, you can ask,” Jem said he lifted her hands up and kissed the ends of her fingers. 

“Does this mean there’s no criminal overlord protecting your brother?” Will asked. 

“There was only me and he’s already lost any claim he had on my protection,” she said. 

“Good, I’m going to go out and kill him tomorrow,” Will said. Tessa looked over at Will and he answered her frown with a half smile. Will leaned over and kissed the side of her head like she was his little sister and not someone who had just admitted to running half of the crime in the city of London. She tightened her hands in Jem’s and confusion washed through her as she stared at Will. 

“I spent a long time doing horrible things because I believed they were right and the only way to keep the people I loved safe. I had believed when I came to London that Shadowhunters were incapable of love but I trusted that they were still there to save the world. I don’t know what I would have done if I had discovered demons weren’t what they said they were. We do the best we can with what we know and then we try and repair the damage we’ve done along the way,” Will said.  

“Why would you trust me?” she asked Will. 

“I am a terrible judge of people but I trust Jem’s judgment,” Will said and then he smiled again, “But even if I didn’t. Even if I hadn’t sat with you while you fought for Jem’s life when there was nothing I could do. Even if none of that had ever happened. What you did today saved the lives of everyone I have left. Jem, my sister, Charlotte and Henry, they all owe their lives to you. You should get a victory march.” 

“I won’t,” she said. 

“No, probably not, that doesn’t mean you deserve it less,” Will agreed with a shrug. 

“He’s right but it’s been a long day, we all need to sleep. Let me walk you back to your room,” Jem said pulling Tessa back to her feet. Some of her horror had subsided. Though the despair she had borrowed from the demon still ran through her like a river, she didn’t seem to be drowning anymore. 

“Are you really going to try and kill Nate?” Tessa asked stopping before the door.  

“Yes,” Will said. “I should say he will be arrested and brought before the Clave for his crimes but they’ll just torture him until he blames everything on you. Killing him is the safer alternative.” 

“That’s against the law,” she said. 

“Not quite. If he’s guilty he needs to be stopped. Stopped is a broad term. I am a Shadowhunter, I don’t break the law,” Will gave her one of his bad angel smiles. He still lounged by the fire as though he was too tired to get up from the chair. The orange light cast his face in dramatic shadows. A spark of amusement went through Tessa in spite of everything else as Will said held up fingers to show her a tiny gap between them, “I just bend it until it’s this close to breaking.” 

The conversation was broken by a knock on the door. Tessa panicked, turning into Jem and pulling away from the door as though it were going to jump out at her. Jem wheeled her around and she let out a muffled gasp. They pushed her back into Will’s wardrobe while she was still looking startled. Jem closed the door on her. 

Magnus was at the door. 

“Thank god you aren’t that windbag Horace,” Will said. 

“Your hair is a different colour,” Magnus said to Jem. Jem swore and ran his fingers through it a few times. He hadn’t even thought to change it back before Will opened the door. 

“We’d rather not explain that to the Clave at this point, if you don’t mind keeping it to yourself,” Will said. 

“Explaining anything to those monkeys is like speaking to a brick wall. And how exactly that one isn’t dead could hardly be a simple topic. I suppose you’ll be keeping that to yourselves as well?” Magnus said. 

“Did you come down here to ask after me?” Jem asked. 

“You should be dead, you aren’t, that’s interesting,” Magnus said with a shrug as though it didn’t matter at all though his attention was sharp and curious. 

“Pie?” Will asked reaching out to pick the end of the chocolate tart up off the end of the bed and held it out. 

Magnus stared at him. His cat’s eyes were puzzled and Jem let out a laugh. It was sharp and exhausted. He’d had too many shocks for one day. He needed sleep but a centuries old warlock looking confused and annoyed at a chocolate tart struck him as hilarious. He leaned against the wardrobe door while both Magnus and Will stared at him and he could feel Tessa’s bafflement as well. 

“You two are keeping more secrets than even I am aware of, be careful of them,” Magnus said and then he took the pie and walked away. He paused before Will could close the door and turned around to wave a finger at Jem, “Also the meeting has let out, make sure you fix your glamour if you’re going out visiting with the others.” 

Once Magnus and his pie had actually left, Jem let Tessa back out of the wardrobe. She reached up and touched his hair. 

“I put you in danger in so many ways,” she said. 

“Don’t, I am too tired to have that argument. I am almost too tired to go back upstairs,” Jem said. 

“You shouldn’t. There are too many people up there, they’re going to find her if you stay up where everyone else is. Someone will barge into your room having forgotten which floor they were on,” Will said, “Stay here, no one comes down here unless they’re looking for me. I’ll take yours for tonight.”

Tessa looked like she was going to argue but Will didn’t give her time for it. He just turned and left them to lock the door and finally fall into the bed. Together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In answer to a comment I got: 
> 
> Yes, Tessa has been the Magister for the entirety of the story.


	60. A Jade Necklace

Jem woke up as he had fallen asleep with Tessa's back against his chest and his arm curled around her waist. She was warm and her hair was still held tightly in a long braid. Watching her braid it up before she climbed into bed beside him was a strange domestic moment, like an echo from another life where everything was easier. That spell held over the morning. It was early, the sun only just starting to cast honey warm light through the window. 

He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her. He tried to align what he had learned over the last day with the girl sleeping beside him. Asleep, she looked even younger than sixteen. She looked like someone who needed protected and taken care of not at all like someone who had committed multiple murders before a crisis of conscience led her to wrenching control of a crime ring from the man who had raised her. She was more powerful than he could have imagined. 

Trusting her was dangerous. Knowing that didn’t stop him. 

She turned a little. He had sat up and she was pressing back to try and lean into his warmth again. He picked a a stray piece of hair up off her cheek and smoothed it back behind her ear. She turned into him and blinked. He didn't just trust her, he would have moved heaven and earth for her if she needed it. He kissed her and she rolled the rest of the way into him, her arm curling around his waist and went back to sleep with her head on his chest. He lay back down with her and tried to forget everything else. 

Tessa stretched in his arms and woke him when the morning was starting to fade into afternoon. His one hand was completely numb and he flexed his fingers waiting for the blood flow to return to normal. She started to sit up and he pulled her back close. The painful despair was creeping in at the edges of her emotions and Jem wanted to push it back out and hold onto the warmth and the illusion of safety instead. 

"You can tell me anything. You could have told me about Mortmain," Jem said softly when they were nose to nose in the blankets. 

"I thought you would despise me for it. Why aren't you angry?" she asked. 

"I knew you had done bad things Tessa. I knew you were a criminal. I was curious about your story when I went to see you in the Silent City but I didn't trust you then. I trust you now. I judge you based on everything you have done since and in every action, from the moment you helped Will and I get out of that gambling den to the truth you told yesterday, you have earned my trust. I couldn't despise you. I simply couldn't," he said. 

He rolled away then and she sat up to watch him. It was half whim and half long buried plan. The thought had been in the back of his mind for weeks but he hadn't been able to make it a plan. It was the kind of thing that was an impossibility but he suddenly didn't care. He made her promise not to move and then grabbed a dressing gown and went upstairs. 

The house was awake. Shadowhunters running to and fro but he ignored them and most of them returned the favour as he made his way back to his own room. Will was still asleep and Jem didn’t wake him. He went to the trunk at the foot of his bed and dug around int it until he found what he was looking for. It was still wrapped in a bit of silk and tucked inside a little box. He folded up the silk and put it away. The pendant itself was a reminder of things he would never get back and he rarely pulled it out. He stared down at the jade and the inscription and turned it in his hand a few times before rushing back. 

He kept it in his palm and Tessa watched him as he shut the door and came back to her. She was full of a warmer version of that calm curiosity that he had seen that first night. He sat down in front of her and she took his free hand in both of hers as soon as he held it out. The blankets were curled around her and her borrowed pajamas were twisted so they didn't lie neatly. Rumpled and perfect. 

"There is no where else I would rather be than right here," he said. She gave him a half smile and started to say something and he shook his head at her, "Shush, I know. The Clave is about to mount a massive manhunt for you and your brother that is going to tear through every corner of London's Downworld. Somewhere out there, it is already starting. It is going to be awful. I know that, Tess but it won't last forever. They will find Nate, they will finish what you have already started, we'll destroy the last shreds of the Pandemonium Club and the world will continue to turn." 

"I just have to survive it?" she said with just a touch of sarcasm. 

"Yes, and when it is over, when your name is cleared, I want you to know that you will always have a place here," he said. 

"Are you asking me back to your bed, Mr. Carstairs? That's quite indecent," she said. 

He laughed and used their joined hands to pull her close enough to kiss. She returned it and he almost gave up on the thread of the conversation he wanted to have to lose himself in it. He pulled back and she was still smiling. 

"I am suggesting, Miss Gray, that we might someday have a place that is ours. Not a place where you can visit and hide from the rest of the household but a place that is both yours and mine. A house somewhere with windows big enough that you can enter or leave in any form you choose. We would have bookcases you can fill with all that ridiculous poetry you love so much and a music room. All the furniture could be pink if you wanted it to be. And yes, a bedroom as well," her sarcasm had fallen away and her emotions were too tangled with his own nerves for him to make any sense of them. 

"Jem," she said but it wasn't a protest so he didn't let it stop him.  

"This belonged to my mother," he said holding out the necklace so she could see it, "My father gave it to her when they were married. Shadowhunters don't usually give bridal gifts. You might give your betrothed your family ring but at the wedding we exchange runes. I want you to have this."

"I can't take something that was your mother's," she said immediately. 

"Yes, you can, of course you can," he said, "I have tried in everything I have done to honour their memory. I tried to be the Shadowhunter they had raised me to be and to become a man they might be proud to call their son. This was a piece of who they were that I thought I would never be able to truly carry on. To carry on their bravery, their sacrifice and their love for the world, I could do all that but their love for each other was something different.

"I didn't think I would ever find someone I loved the way they loved each other. I thought that would be gone but instead I have found you. The inscription here," he turned her hand and put the pendant in it so that the inscription was visible she let him guide her fingers over it so she could feel the symbols as well as see them, "It reads, when two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze."

She ran her hand over it and looked up at him, "You can't mean that." 

"I mean it. I mean every word of it. I have been curious about you, I have worried for you, I have seen you do impossible things, incredible things, I have never been so happy as when you are here with me. I don't know when it happened exactly but I know it is true. When you enter a room, everything else falls away. I love you," he said. 

Her hands were cupped around his but she hadn't taken the necklace from them. She looked up at him and the emotion running through her was doubt. Doubt not in him but in herself. He pulled her in and she tensed before leaned her head down against his shoulder. Their hands were still curled together around the necklace. He didn't want to force it on her but he also desperately didn’t want to wrap it back up and hide it away in the corner of his trunk again. 

"I love you," he said again, speaking into her hair now, "This is not a proposal. I know everything is too mad right now for that. This is a promise. A promise that no matter what the Clave thinks you are, no matter what you have done, I swear to you, you have someplace to come home to. My heart is already yours. I am full of the mad hope that perhaps a corner of yours might have a place for me as well." 

"Don't you know the answer to that?" she asked pulling away from him. 

"Tell me," he said. 

"I love you too much to accept this. I love you enough that it makes me wish I wasn't so selfish. I shouldn't have ever have followed you home. I should leave before I get you into more trouble," she was panicking, her voice rising and her words stumbling over each other. She pulled away and he reached out and grabbed her hand. The pendant hung between them, the chain looped over his fingers. She turned his hand over so the bruise coloured rune there was clearly visible to him. 

"I did this to you. If I didn't care for you, this wouldn't have happened. Even the things I love are ruined and destroyed by the life I lead," she said but she didn't pull away from his hand. She stood beside the bed with her arm outstretched. 

"If this hadn't happened, I very likely would have been dead before my nineteenth birthday," Jem said, "You are not selfish for wanting love. You deserve it. You deserve more than me but perhaps I am selfish too. I want you. I want your heart and your soul and your body beside mine. I want to be able to share your secrets and tell you mine. We are, both of us, stronger and better when we are not alone." 

“What promise do you want in return?” she asked.

“That when it is all over, when the battles are fought and the dust has settled, that you will still stand with me and we can make our next decisions together. Stay with me, Tessa Gray,” he said. He slid back off the edge of the bed to stand beside her, closer to her. The little bit of jade still hung between them. 

She untangled her hand from his and this time he let her go. He started trying to gather up his defenses before she could walk away from him. He didn’t look away from her. It was impossible to ask these things of her. It was foolhardy and stupid. He had let his heart run away with his mind, with his mouth, with his better sense. He threw up every mental wall he had so he didn’t have to feel whatever emotions ran through her as she turned him away. 

She was watching him and he couldn’t look away. Her her expression was empty as she held him in place with just those eyes. They were gray as storm clouds that morning. He tried to match her stoicism. He had stayed calm through worse than this. 

She untangled the chain from his fingers and held it so it dangled from hers. He watched as she drew it up into her palm so the stone lay against her skin. He pushed the little hopeful voice down and forced himself to stay still. 

“I know the exact moment,” she said. 

“The exact moment,” he repeated. 

“When I knew. You said that you don’t remember the moment when you knew, only that it had happened. I know exactly,” she said and she didn’t use the word he had but he let himself hope that she meant it. 

“When?” he asked. 

“I told you that Will would kill you, that loving him was a death sentence and the next time I saw you, you were standing there with him. He gave you a smile and you whispered something to him as you came into the room and then you broke apart but you both watched each other. It wasn’t that you were kind to me, people are always kind when they want something, but you were kind to him when all he could ever bring you was more pain,” she said tracing the inscription with her fingers. 

“I’ve never known someone so composed of love as you,” she said looking back up at him. “As long as I can, whenever I can, in this and in anything that comes after this, I will stand with you. I love you, and though it isn’t as much as you deserve, I love you with every corner of my heart.”

Jem didn’t try to put his emotions into words. They were too big for words. He let out a laugh and leaned his forehead against hers. She lifted the necklace and clasped it around her neck so it settled just below her collar bone. He touched it with a finger and couldn’t stop smiling. He let his walls down and rather than kissing her, he pulled her into a hug. Her anxiety wove through a happiness that wasn’t uncomplicated but was deep and real. 

She settled her head on his shoulder, her arms around his neck and they held on to each other. 


	61. Arguments Over Breakfast

The breakfast table was nearly empty by the time Jem and Will arrived. It was scattered with the remains of a feast. Jem helped himself to a piece of toast and sat down across from Cecily who was engaged in an hostile debate with Horace who kept talking over her and making her glare. Will sat down at his sister’s side and stole some of the bacon from her plate though she didn’t notice. 

The other Shadowhunters at the table were strangers though Jem recognized Jesse Blackthorn among them. They were watching Cecily with a range of reactions that ran from annoyance to entertainment as she got more angry. No one came to her defense but a pair of women at the end of the table were keeping score on a scrap of paper and Cecily seemed to be winning. 

“Jessamine was enchanted, it wasn’t something she did out of malice. You can’t find someone guilty of being enchanted,” Cecily growled pointing her spoon at Horace. She had worn gear to breakfast and Jem couldn’t tell if it was because putting on a dress was too difficult or because she planned to force herself onto one of the search teams after breakfast. Horace looked a little startled to have his monologue interrupted. 

“You can actually,” Will muttered to her and then Horace was off on another long discussion about the legalities of enchantment and how cases were laid. It was the same law that could have had Jem executed if Charlotte had reported him to the Clave the night he had been tied to Tessa. Jem had remembered to make his hair silver again but hadn’t covered his hand. He tucked the blue rune away under the table where it couldn’t be seen though no one was paying him any attention. 

Cecily did not take the explanation well. She looked even more like Will when she was furious. Her lips drew together in a tight line and she had stopped eating altogether. She still held the spoon but more like a weapon than a piece of silverware. She was staring at their interim Institute Head who was still rambling away. Will looked amused by the entire production but it was his old defensive amusement, the kind he had favoured when he had still been living under the curse. His mood wasn’t any better than Cecily’s. 

Jem finished fixing his tea and sat back. He kept his marked hand in his lap and waited for the Herondale siblings to start tearing into the old man. He took a sip as Cecily flung the spoon. She threw it like a knife and Will caught it out of the air as it flew by him. Will pointed the spoon at her and shook his head. Horace didn’t notice. The rest of the table was paying attention now. The women with the score card leaned together and suppressed a giggle. 

“She wasn’t a Shadowhunter,” Cecily growled. If she wasn’t going to be allowed to commit violence with the cutlery then she was going to do it verbally, “She never wanted to be a Shadowhunter and instead of being protected and taught how to be a lady, she was left to attempt it on her own. She was taken advantage of by someone who manipulated her with magic and told her that she was loved. She had no one else to love her. Not the way she wanted to be loved. She wasn’t a warrior. She was a victim. She is not the enemy. We are the Nephilim, it should have come to us to protect her. We failed.” 

Cecily spit the last word out like venom and everyone was silent. She slammed back from the table, knocking her chair backwards and stormed out of the room. Everyone watched her go. Horace’s next words died as he stared after her. She wove around Sophie who was coming into the room with a plate of fruit and drawn expression. 

“She’s a spirited little thing, isn’t she?” Horace said and with a single look between them, Jem and Will got up and followed her. Will stopped beside Sophie and pushed all the strawberries from her platter into an empty teacup he was carrying and then kept going. Sophie looked between them with her eyebrows drawn together but her maid’s training keeping her from looking anything but politely startled. Jem gave her a smile and she returned it. Then he was hurrying after Will. 

Will stopped by his room on their way upstairs and handed Tessa the cup of strawberries without a word. He just put them in her hand and then went after his sister. She gave him a genuine smile as he retreated. Jem lingered. He a kiss on Tessa’s forehead and touched the necklace at her throat with a single finger. The colour was brighter than he remembered it. He had thought that he might have imagined the promises but here was the proof of it and it made him smile. 

“We’ll be right back and we can make a plan for whatever comes next,” Jem said. She nodded and glanced after Will. Jem didn’t want to go after him. He wanted to just curl up with her and pretend away the rest of the world and all the problems. Instead he kissed her again and turned to chase after Will and his sister. 

“Pompous heartless bastards, Mam was right, some of them are monsters,” Cecily was saying as Jem pushed open the door to the training room. The training room was in disarray. Usually there were no more than five people who used it and Charlotte had put them all in the habit of cleaning it up themselves. Evidently that tradition was not common at all Institutes as the weapons were left leaning against walls or even sticking out of targets rather than put back in their places. Charlotte was going to throw a fit when she got home and saw the mess of the place. 

“She did rather make a mess of things,” Will said. 

“I won't hear that from you as well. You knew her for years. What did you call him, Nate? Nate Gray made a mess of things. He and that girl you caught here were the ones who stole the Pyxis. Jessie didn’t do it on purpose,” Cecily said. 

Jem wanted to defend Tessa but it wasn’t going to add anything to this conversation so he kept his mouth shut. Will had his arms tightly crossed as he watched Cecily throw knife after knife at the target in front of her and then storm over and collect them up. 

“Should we go through Jessie’s things and see if there is any evidence for Nate there?” Jem asked. They needed to do something but the idea of it made his skin crawl a little bit. Jessie had never been open about her space. Her room was decorated and kept to her own standards and she did not like anyone else to set foot in it. 

“I already did, before breakfast,” Cecily said, “She kept him well hidden, there was nothing there to find. No love letters hidden under pillows or mattresses. There are some bits of jewelry that might have been gifts or might have been things she has always had and I hadn’t noticed before. There is nothing useful in her room. The Clave can search it for hours, can tear her dollhouse to tiny pieces if they want but they won’t find anything useful. I wish we could have traded places.”

“How so?” Will asked. Cecily had stepped away from the target with the knives held between her fingers like claws. She pointed them at Will, careless but not as angry. Her expression softened as she answered him. 

“I wish I could have sent her home to Mam. Mam would have made sure she found a suitable match and had a proper debut. She had all these plans for me. I tried to be the proper daughter, to be all the children they had lost all at once but I couldn’t very well join society and find a good husband while you were still trapped here,” Cecily said. 

“I am not trapped, Cece, it isn’t a prison,” Will said. 

“I have noticed,” Cecily said and some of her venom was back. “How could you go back and how can I go back? What if those monsters had been released in Wales? How do you close your eyes again after you have seen that the nightmares are real?”

“You needn’t fight the monsters, you can still go back to that life, be safe, be happy. Leave the nightmares behind,” Will said. 

“No,” she said and it wasn’t the tantrum of an angry little girl who had just lost a friend, it was a declaration. It made her older. Someday she would stand with the likes of Charlotte, a warrior and a lady both. Cecily would be a force to be reckoned with. Jem saw the same thought pass over Will’s face but it brought fear rather than pride. 

“There can be happiness in a warrior’s life,” Jem said before Will could say anything. Will glared and Jem held his gaze. Cecily did not need to be told that she was a child in need of protecting. She had killed her first demon less than a day before and lived to tell the tale. Will didn’t want to admit it but her coddled childhood was already over. Cecily raised her eyebrows at him. 

“She is not a warrior,” Will said. 

This was not Jem’s fight. He was going to make them both angrier if he stayed in the room. He should not have said anything at all. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked up to find that they were both staring at him. 

“That isn’t for me to determine,” he said and he left the “Nor is it for you to determine,” hang in the air unsaid but Will’s expression said that he knew it was there. The last thing either of them needed was to be arguing but Jem wasn’t going to take Will’s side in this. So he just shook his head and backed out of it. They could yell at each other later, when Cecily wasn’t in the room. 

“I’m going to go out and see if I can’t get that item we need for the search for Nathaniel Gray. I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he said instead of answering the anger on either of their faces. 

“Very well,” Will said with a sigh. Cecily watched him with hard eyes. He gave her a smile that made Will make an angry noise. She gave him a quirk of a smile as though they were in on a secret and Will shook his head as though he didn’t like the idea of them being allied against him. Jem ducked out of the room but hoped that Cecily understood that even if Horace thought she was a silly little girl and Will thought she needed protecting from everything, that she would prove them all wrong. 

He went back downstairs to find Tessa. 

They had people to prove wrong as well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That we don't get a single scene between Cece and Jem in canon is a travesty. I think he would have really really liked her and I like the idea that he and Will have different views on her joining the ranks of the Clave. Will and Jem don't have many true arguments.


	62. Visiting Home

The Nephilim were out tearing through Downworld haunts, interrogating both criminals and people going about their daily business but in the mundane streets, amid the fashionable townhouses and shops, it was just another day. The sun didn't quite make it out from behind clouds but at least it wasn't raining. Jem walked beside a man named Daniel Sharpe who wore one of Will's suits and smiled Tessa's smile when they made eye contact. She had chosen that particular change because this body fit into Will's clothing easily and she claimed the real Daniel would be in Cork, Ireland where they couldn't accidentally run into him. 

It was a little like waking from a dream. Fire and death and an Institute full of strangers in Charlotte's absence all seemed like they couldn't be real. They'd come back from this walk to find that the Institute was as it always was. Tessa would meet him at his window sill and Jessie would be whining over the society pages and Henry would be expounding on some invention while Charlotte smiled at him. Everything would be normal. 

Tessa laughed and bumped his shoulder, almost pushing him sideways. He'd been lost in thought and even though the body she wore was mundane, he was big enough to unbalance Jem when he wasn't expecting it. He caught himself before he stumbled and looked at the still laughing Tessa who widened her eyes just a fraction. Alarm or a warning hidden in that farm boy smile. 

He caught on and laughed with her, shoving her back and scanning the street at the same time. They ducked into a little mundane shop selling gaudy glassware and Tessa waved her fingers in the shape of a spell. The sounds of the clerk, and of tinkling china as another shopper sifted through plate samples all dulled. 

Jem snapped his attention back to the street, looking for what he had missed but couldn't find it. He peered out through the bubble of the glamour at the people on the street but the all looked perfectly normal to him. He couldn't even see someone who looked out of place. Beside  him, Tessa had retreated into an eerie sort of calm. He touched her arm. 

"The man with the blue cravat and the top hat isn't human, neither is the woman in the pink dress and the two children with her are not children," she said. "I wasn’t sure, but I recognize the woman."

It was good glamour but once Jem looked at them directly, he could see the cracks in it. The truth was there, peeking out around the edges. The children had tails though the glamour was tightly woven enough that even with his voyance rune on his hand, he couldn't quite make out the details. 

"Who are they?" he said. 

"They aren't part of Pandemonium. There are other criminals in the world,” she was nearly whispering even though the glamour she had woven hid them from view and no one in the shop was going to notice them. She didn’t elaborate as she watched the street. Finally her tight expression gave way to relief and Jem watched as the loitering Downworlders started to move away. He didn’t see why until a moment later. 

The automatons walked down the street. Just two, right in the middle of the road where the traffic flowed around them, diverted by the glamour they move in. Unlike the glamour of the two creatures scampering by the shop window looking like regular children, this was intended only for mundanes. Everyone else was meant to see through it. It would only take a glimmer of the sight to make out that there was something in the road. 

“We’d best take the long way around,” Tessa said. 

“Those ones are in better shape than most of them,” Jem said. 

“The expectation was that anything sent against the Shadowhunters would be torn to shreds so we didn’t send the good ones,” she said with a shrug. She hesitated for a moment then wrapped the glamour around them instead of the spot. She linked her fingers with his and pulled him toward the rear exit.

He wanted to ask other questions, about explosions and plans and what exactly she meant by “good ones.” In particular, how much more powerful a good one might be from the automatons he had already seen. He didn’t. He held her hand and let her pull him along. The long way around detoured through a garden and a few twisting alleys that ran along the back of the meticulous townhouses that faced the street. It was less fashionable and spotless back here and they let themselves get lost in rushes of servants carrying packages and sacks of food back from market and into kitchens.  

She might as well have picked a house out at random. She paused before opening the gate. Jem could make out sigils cut into the wood and then painted over. It was all meant to look very normal but there were strong wards on this place. 

“Can you look more plain?” she asked. 

“Plain?” he asked. 

“You are alarmingly beautiful. People will remember you even when your hair is brown. You need to look like another labourer who thinks he can earn his fortune in crime,” she said looking him up and down. 

“I’m not beautiful,” he said. 

“Yes, you are. Try for squarer and a little lumpier,” she said and coached him through the change until it was to her liking. He had no idea what his face looked like now and he was still a little distracted that she had called him beautiful. He followed her into a tiny back garden and then up the steps to the servant’s entrance. 

The magic in the place had weight like the feel of a summer afternoon before a summer storm broke out. It prickled at him and his fingers itched for weapons he knew were better kept hidden. Tessa was herself again as they made their way up the steps and Will’s suit pooled a little at her feet and her hair fell everywhere. Somehow, she managed not to look disheveled. She carried herself with that straight backed even calm she had had when he’d first met her. All her personality, everything he’d come to think of as her, fell away. 

“Your brother was here,” said a voice as she stepped inside, “And you have been gone far too long. Have you eaten?”

Jem followed her into the kitchen to find a fae woman with intense eyes and a heart shaped face brandishing a spoon at Tessa. She snapped her attention to Jem and her skin glimmered in the lights of the kitchen. She was a shade of pink better suited to flowers than skin and when her eyes went to him the light in the room did as well. He would have grabbed for the knives in his wrist sheathes if Tessa hadn’t grabbed his sleeve in warning. 

The lamps around the room were not lamps. They were little pots of some sort of food and tiny sprites no taller than his hand were gathered around them. At least they were until they were called to examine the intruder. They buzzed around his head like flies and he concentrated on holding his magic in place and keeping still until they retreated. 

“You do not recruit people Annie, you need to stop playing at dangerous games. You are going to provoke him if you keep this up. You cannot stay out for days. You cannot bring home strays. You are young and you may believe that you are invincible but you are not,” she said. 

“When was my brother here?” Tessa asked in a voice as calm and as empty as her expression. 

The woman frowned and her little army of sprites rained down on Tessa, chattering at her. Reminding the girl they still called Annie of all the reasons she needed to behave but not one of them touched her. They flitted in and out, a glowing cloud around her head but she seemed to be nothing more than mildly annoyed by it so Jem suppressed the urge to step in an protect her. If she wanted to defend herself, she would.  

“Do you trust me, Tony?” Tessa asked waving off the angry hoard of glowing creatures as though they were nothing. 

“You are a half-mad dishonest monster raised by the worst criminals this city has to offer. I trust you about that much,” Tony said waving a pink hand at Tessa as her sprites settled back around her making her glow like an angel in a painting. Tessa gathered up her courage and her emotions pulled on Jem a little, like she was leaning on him for support. 

“Good,” Tessa said with a smile, “Go now and don’t come back. I’ll make sure that there is money in your account by tonight, take it all and leave.” 

“Not invincible, little one,” Tony said again and her attention flitted back to Jem who crossed his arms and gave her his best imitation of Will’s arrogant smirk. He was trying for unerring confidence. The look she gave him said that maybe he was pulling it off. 

“No, I am not but I know what’s coming and while some of them deserve it, you do not, take his money and go do something else, anything else,” Tessa said. 

Tony considered her. Her eyes were brown and looked normal in her shimmery flower petal face. Tessa stared back at her and Jem wondered how long they had known each other. Had this woman been a part of Tessa’s childhood? Was she a servant or an ally or something else entirely? He could feel the tension mounting in Tessa. She was second guessing herself. So she didn’t trust Tony as much as he had thought. 

“And if I go upstairs, calling about the little traitor?” Tony asked. 

“It’s already over and I’m faster than them,” Tessa said, “You can stay and fight if you want, try to drag me back but it won’t help.” 

“You’re a dangerous creature, little warlock. You hide it away behind that pretty face but you’re ruthless aren’t you? First having Thaddeus sent off and now whatever you’ve been playing at in the dark. You think you can make it in Downworld all by yourself? You think you can collect up a few mundanes and build an empire like his? You’ll steal his money and take over, is that the plan?” she asked. 

“I don’t need your warnings,” Tessa said. 

“Then why would I need yours?” she asked. Her sprites hissed from where they were perched on her shoulders and her head. They were even lined up down her arms like soldiers standing at attention even as she moved. 

“The Dark Sisters would tear me apart, each lesson worse than the one before it. You may have only been doing your job but you always put me back together again. Bandages and healing spells and reassuring words. I meant the warning as a kindness only, Tony, a repayment for a debt,” Tessa said in that eerie calm voice. 

Then she marched past Tony. The sprites lifted off of the faerie in a single movement but they didn’t follow as Tessa and Jem stepped out of the swinging door and into a dining room where the table sat bare. Jem glanced back before the door swung shut behind him to see Tony turn and head for the door. She took nothing but her sprites.

The house was painfully normal. They passed a study where mechanical diagrams were framed up on the walls and a collection of artefacts from around the world was displayed on a shelf. The framed landscape on the stairs was of a quaint cottage surrounded by woods. Just a house. There wasn’t anyone else there. They met no one as they walked past the empty bedrooms on the second floor. 

Tessa paused to look at one and a wave of nostalgia and mingled dread washed over her. He followed her gaze, looked at the room that had been hers and saw nothing there. A few childhood dolls sitting on a bench by the window but it was the only evidence that an individual had ever lived there. 

Her brother’s room on the other hand was far more lived in. Books and gadgets and clothing was strewn about. Nate didn’t do much tidying up and it looked as though no one had touched the space since he’d gone. Dust had settled. A suit lay out on the bed as though he had intended to put on and would be back at any moment. 

“Did he live here?” Jem asked. 

“Sometimes, he kept his own rooms as well but he spent a lot of time here,” Tessa said. 

She picked things up and then held them for a moment before putting them back down. Each time she paused to hold something, the connection between them dimmed as though she were changing. When she found objects that she had deemed strong enough: a tie, a gadget Jem couldn’t make sense of, and a little notebook, she dropped them all in a bag and gave him a smile. 

“Just that easy?” he said. 

“Nothing’s easy,” she said, “Let’s go before they get here.”

“Who?” he asked following her down the stairs. 

“Whomever Tony told,” she said. 

She took off down the stairs at a run and Jem wheeled to follow. 

Tessa stopped at the kitchen door where they had come in and looked back at the house. A trill of emotions went through her, vindictive and nostalgic all at once. He looked back and tried to imagine it as her childhood home but couldn't. She was too impressive to belong to a place this simple. It looked so mundane. But then, he had trouble picturing her as a child at all.

Jem saw them before she did. He had his hand on the door and caught sight of them coming through the back gate. He had been expecting the downworlders from the street but instead it was figures in gear. Not many, a search party and nothing more. Three men and a woman, none of them familiar. Jem wondered if it was Tony who had sent them or if they had found some bit of evidence that had led them to this place. 

"Nephilim," he said and she spun to look, her eyes got a little wider and a trill of fear ran through her. He had forgotten how much Shadowhunters scared her. He ran his options and while a part of him wanted to open the door and start explaining what he had found, that wasn't a choice for Tessa. She would be arrested and he would be caught in questions that he wouldn't be able to answer. 

He had made the decision before they had finished fanning out across the yard. 

A knock came at the front door. Not just four then. 

"How do we get out?" he asked. 

"This way," she said.  

She didn't hurry or run though he could feel the anxiety in her. She had been shot by a Shadowhunter less than twenty four hours before and her fear of being sent back to the Silent City ran even deeper than that. But for all that, she carried herself like she was preparing tea. As calm as a Sunday afternoon at a Church picnic. 

She led the way into a pantry and then down through a hatch into the cellar and carefully closed the doors behind them. A little bit of magic on each door, not a true glamour, just enough to dispel attention. It wouldn't do much against a Nephilim but it might keep them from finding the cellar for a few extra minutes while the searched the rest of the house. 

Above them the knocking on the door had fallen silent. Jem could hear footsteps. Tessa stepped around a shelf of preserves and dropped down another few steps into a tunnel. For a moment, Jem thought it was just an escape tunnel until he pulled out his witchlight and lit it up. The tunnel was lined with automatons and he jerked back in surprise. The light bounced off of them. Like suits of armour in a manor house they stood shoulder to shoulder, empty and lifeless. 

Tessa didn't seem to see them. She hurried by them like they were furniture. They went the length of the house twice over, heading parallel with the street. Mortmain had his escape routes well prepared. The row of automatons wasn't as long as the tunnel though Jem could see marks in the dirt along the walls where some had been removed. 

Tessa stopped and turned back. 

"My name is Anne Mortmain, I order you to wake," she said loudly and it reverberated in the closed space. The automatons ground and moved. Jem couldn't see them all, the light from the witchstone didn't stretch that far back. 

"There is no reason to send them after the Shadowhunters, we'll be long gone before they make it this far," Jem said. 

"I know," she said squeezing his hand before she issued another flurry of orders. She had the automatons turn and march back the way they had come, creating a wall of metal bodies between them and any pursuit coming from the town house before she called on them to, "Sleep," and then all fell silent and still again. 

"Are these ones going to explode?" Jem asked. 

"I hope not, they aren't designed for it. The explosive ones have chambers inside that hold extra fuel. These ones should be fine. They're just a barrier," she said.  

She led him down the tunnel to a fork and paused. She looked each way and Jem could feel the weight of her thoughts though he didn't know what they were. He didn't ask what was at the end of each of these tunnels. He waited for her to make the decision. She went right and he followed along. They were moving fast and quiet but not running. Tessa was anxious but not scared. 

Jem kept listening for the sound of an explosion with a weight of guilt in his stomach. He believed that she hadn't set any of the machines to explode but he couldn't shake the fear that she was wrong and one of them would. Or that they would wake up and launch an attack. Or in trying to push them out of the way the Shadowhunters would trigger one that was damaged. If anyone died, it would be their fault. His fault. He kept straining his ears for sounds of blades on metal or explosions or just footsteps but it was deathly quiet below ground.

Their destination was a wooden door set in the ceiling, not unlike the one that they had come from. Tessa waved him back and she pushed it open with magic. It lifted slowly, creaking and then thumped back out of sight and let a square of sunlight down into the dark. Jem squinted at it and Tessa looked straight up. 

For a moment she stood in the light, a girl in a suit with her hair picking up highlights of sunlight.

Then something grabbed her and yanked her up out of the dark. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hello, story I have 95% finished but have been neglecting!!
> 
> There are quite a few updates in the wings (I've had a ten chapter lead for months now) so I'll be getting them edited and posted between class work.


	63. Monster Hunters in the Garden

There was scrabbling above him and someone coughed and let out a gasp of breath. Jem started forward into the light but she stopped him with a wave of emotion and a command. 

"No," she said and the word was directed at him strongly enough that the binding spell caught hold of him. He could defy her demands but he had to work at it. She hadn't used it since that first night. She hadn't given a single order and it took him by surprise. His will bent to hers but didn't break and he shook it off a moment later. Still it was enough to make him stop and think.

"The fae woman was right, this is the girl, is it not?" a voice said. Tessa had fallen silent and Jem was still shaking off her command but he recognized this voice. The family name was outside his memory but he was called Kristof. He had been placed with the Cornwall Institute for his year abroad from Berlin and had made more than one plea to Charlotte to be moved to London because he hated the country side. Jem had met him in passing a few times. 

They'd run right into a Nephilim search party. No. A Nephilim search party had been sent after them. 

"She also said there were two of them," another voice said. 

"Come on out of the hole, little rat," Kristof said. 

Jem was heavily armed under his suit jacket and he checked all his glamours. He couldn't afford to be himself when he stepped out into the sunlight so he needed to strip away any evidence that he was Nephilim. The glamour and the clothing covered his runes but he was still carrying runed weapons and seraph blades that would give him away. 

"Come out or we can start throwing pieces of her back to you. She doesn't need both hands to stand trial," he said. There was a noise of surprise and the wall between himself and Tessa's fear slammed into place as she changed into someone or something else. 

Jem threw himself up over the edge of the hole and into a small sunlit park before he could lose the cover of the confusion. There was enough light that he could use their shadows to find an open spot and launch through. He moved fast. Shadowhunter fast and that was a risk but if he had to choose between his secrets and her getting hurt, he was prepared to put her safety first. 

He got out of the reach of arms and weapons before spinning around. Tessa wasn't Tessa anymore. She was Gabriel and Kristoff was staring at her with bafflement on his face. Kristoff recovered quickly but he turned toward Jem instead of keeping his attention on her. The one holding Tessa glanced in Jem's direction as well. That was the first mistake. 

Tessa Gray was a warlock girl with stealth training and Jem could assume some training in how to fight. She wasn't strong enough or fast enough to get away from a Nephilim on her own. The change made her something else entirely. Gabriel was a fully trained Shadowhunter and Tessa had all his skills and all his strength and was willing to use them. 

She hit the man holding her with an elbow. She twisted and swung him over her shoulder and into the hole in one single movement. She came up with one of his swords in her hand and fell into a defensive stance in front of the still startled Kristoff. It happened in seconds. Jem barely had time to wheel to see it. 

They all wore gear. Black and bristling with weapons. Around them the wind rustled bright green leaves and Jem's path had taken him through a flower garden full of little white flowers he couldn't name. For a strange moment, in that adrenaline rush of a battle where time stopped behaving normally, the world held. Monster hunters in the garden. Sunshine reflected off blades and flowers stuck to leather boots. 

But the moment was only a moment, then the fight began. 

Jem had trained against Shadowhunters his entire life, sometimes ones twice his own age, often ones more skilled than he was. Still, he had never had a Shadowhunter come at him as an enemy. It wasn't the same. He wanted to offer apologies and explanation but his instincts were faster than his thoughts as he ducked out of the way of a swinging blade. 

"Tessa," he called as he retreated rather than attacked. He pulled the fight back in so that he could fall in beside her. They were outnumbered and their chances of winning were tiny to begin with but Jem was not prepared to kill anyone. He needed to find another answer before it came to that. The fight fell back around them. 

Jem was bleeding from a cut on his arm but Tessa was unhurt as she stood beside him in Gabriel's body. Kristoff had come out of that one bloodied and angry. The man Tessa had thrown had made it back up out of the hole and looked just as furious. They'd been expecting an easy fight. 

"What are you?" he asked. 

"Better with a sword than you are," Tessa retorted. 

"This needn't end in blood," Jem tried. His voice was his own but he had kept his face hidden. The strain of it was wearing on him. He had a sudden fear of dying while wearing someone else's face. He would die and they would take her back to be killed in some public execution. He couldn't stomach that possibility. 

"There's already been blood. You savages have already done enough damage," a woman to Tessa's right spat out.  Jem felt his defenses rising. They didn't know what she had done and how much they owed her. He wanted to yell and he started second guessing his decision not to hurt anyone. He shook that thought back down and readjusted his footing so he was just a little bit ahead of her so when the attack came again, they would have to go through him first. 

"Do you think that talking would do us any good?" Tessa asked.

"Not at this point," Jem said. 

"Then we'd best be going," she said. 

"Where do you think you're going to go?" Kristoff asked. 

"Trust me and push hard," Tessa said and it was her own voice again. She changed back and dropped the sword to take three steps to the wall at the back of the garden. She held onto him and threw her shoulder at it. Her last words had been an order and he followed it because his mind was too distracted to fight against her as well as everything else. 

They fell through the stone and hit the street outside. 

The crowd moved around them like water around a stone. The glamours that hid them from the mundanes were holding in spite of the fight and all his distraction. 

She scrambled forward, forcing Will's jacket into his hands as they moved toward the street and the mix of carriages and foot traffic. She was pulling off clothing and kicking it out into the street. In any other context he might have been worried about her standing half naked in the road but he could feel her planning as she did it even if he didn't fully understand it. 

"Change, hide in plain sight," she said.

Then she was a cat and he threw his bloodied jacket down into the street where it would be trampled by a stagecoach rumbling up the street. He shrugged on the one she handed him and ignored the burn of his slashed arm. He made his hair blonde and curly and long enough to cover his forehead because he couldn't change his features without time and thought. He wore his own face as he grabbed the cat up off the cobbles with his uninjured arm and pushed deeper into the crowd. 

He stopped beside a shop window and watched the reflection as the last pair of Shadowhunters climbed over the wall. They were moving fast but they were looking for two people. He said a silent word of thanks that she had chosen a black suit out of Will's collection. He tried to force himself not to stand like a soldier but he wasn't sure how to behave normally. He smiled at a lady beside him, who couldn't see him and then stepped into the shop. It was a bakery and the warmth of food smells enveloped him. He looked at the cabinet as though he intended to buy something. 

He was not trained to sneak. He was trained to meet a threat head on. He felt antsy and useless and in danger standing there in the shop with his hair the wrong colour and his wound bleeding through his borrowed jacket and down his arm. He folded his arms so the blood wouldn't drip off is fingers. 

Tessa scampered across the floor to leap up onto the window sill and watch. A cat in a shop window wasn't likely to draw attention unless they were thinking hard about what they were looking for. Jem wasn't sure if anyone outside of the Institute called her Cat Girl. Charlotte had used more technical language, calling her a shapeshifter in any submitted reports. Most Nephilim wouldn't think to stop and grab up any cat they passed. 

She meowed and he turned back to her. She sat by the door and tilted her head back in one of those boneless movements cats had. He reached down and scooped her up and then stepped out onto the street. She pointed him where to go. Looking in that direction and then meowing. 

They wove through the London streets and didn't see another Shadowhunter. Jem held her and pet her head as they walked. She leaned against his chest, drooping but still paying attention to the streets. She didn't take him back to the Institute. She took him to a little house not too far from Mortmain's. They must have very nearly followed the same path they had taken underground. 

She leapt down out of his arms and padded up the steps to the front door. He looked at her and raise his eyebrows but she just waited so he turned the knob and pushed it open and she led him into her home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someday I will finish this story! I will. I have faith!


	64. Bleeding on the Furniture

He trailed his fingers along a little side table as he stepped into the small front hall. He knew what this place was from her stories. This was her home. This was the house she had bought with stolen money as a little girl and that she kept a secret from everyone else. 

She turned and changed and stepped into him without reaching for anything to wear. Her hands found his cheeks and she turned his face down to hers and brushed blonde hair away. He shook the magic off like it was water and his hair fell back down across his forehead the dark brown it was meant to be. She was worried, near frantic and he reached up his uninjured arm to cup her face and smile at her. 

"How badly were you hurt?" she asked before he could say anything soothing. 

"Just a cut. I need an iratze but nothing more," he said. 

"Oh, oh, thank god," she said. 

"Don't worry over me, Tess, truly, it's fine," he said. 

"I could smell all that blood. It was such a strong smell and I was afraid that it was worse than you were letting on," she said. 

"I'm fine," he tried for soothing but her emotions wouldn't quiet and he let her pull off his jacket and touch his arm. He had stopped dripping blood by the time they left the bakery and he tried telling her that, "I heal fast. Nephilim do. Without the yin fen to slow me down, I heal very fast." 

"Come here, let me see," she said as she pulled him into the living room and sat him down on a pink chaise beside a table full of books. He looked up at the walls, at a series of paintings of flowers. It was a beautiful room. He forced himself to look at all of it and ignore that she still wasn't dressed. She didn't seem to care as she pulled the torn fabric wider. 

He grabbed her hand and pulled it in so he could hold it against his chest and stop her from moving for a just a moment. The panic didn't make sense to him. They hadn't been followed, they hadn't been hurt. They had lost the bag of Nate's things in the park but that meant that the Nephilim would go back and get them and giving them to the Clave had been the entire purpose so it hardly seemed like a tragedy worthy of her storm of feeling. 

"Tell me what's wrong," he said. 

"They would have killed you. They would have dragged me back there so they could blame everything on me but they would have killed you. You should have told them who you were, you could have said you had found me and you could have gone back a hero instead of getting hurt," the words fell out of her, fast and rushed and panicked. 

"Never. I do not want to be a hero at your expense," he said quietly. 

"I don't want to be the reason that you lose everything. You deserve to be the hero," she said. 

"We can write my name in the history books if you want but not if it comes at the price of betrayal," he said. 

He took her face in his hands, both of them, even though he could feel the scabbed wound start to bleed again when he moved his arm. She looked at him with wide wet eyes. 

"We're going to clear your name and mine and everything will work out in the end," he said. 

She blinked back the tears and nodded before she said, "Can we heal the wound now, please? You're bleeding on my sofa." It was an attempt at a joke but her panic hadn't subsided enough for either of them to find it funny. She watched him work and didn't leave to dress until she was sure that the iratze he had drawn had done its job. 

With Tessa temporarily gone, he let himself relax. He could feel his arm starting to heal. From somewhere, later he would find out there was a small apartment over the empty carriage house behind the house, a housekeeper appeared. She was a mundane and about fifty and she looked him over with consideration as she showed him to a room with a wash basin and hot water. 

It was a small bedroom, nearly unfurnished but he was thankful to have hot water and to be able to get the blood off. He wanted to wash the entire day away. Having a Shadowhunter come at him with a seraph blade drawn and rage on their face was something he needed to erase entirely but wasn't sure he'd ever be able to. 

"Second time in a month she has brought someone home," the housekeeper said. 

"Has it only been a month? It feels like too much has happened for it to be that short a time. At least Will had the decency not to bleed on your furniture, I do apologize for that," Jem said. 

She raised her eyebrows at him and he realized belatedly that it had been some sort of test. He wondered what it all looked like to this woman. From the way Tessa had spoken of this place, he didn't think it was normal for her to bring friends around for tea and a visit. This person, brusque though she was, cared about Tessa and Jem took some comfort in that. 

"My name is," he started to introduce himself and she cut him off. 

"Your name doesn't matter sir, I don't get mixed up in her troubles. It is better for all of us that way," she watched Jem for another long moment before saying pointedly, "This isn't the first time I have had to scrub blood out of furniture. You are lucky that your wound healed so quickly." 

"I won't hurt her. I may be mixed up in her troubles but I will do everything in my power not to make them worse," Jem said. 

"I see. I'll see if I can't find you something less ragged to wear," she said with a nod and then she left Jem to scrub off blood and try to make himself presentable again. 

Tessa showed up while he was in the process of it and though she had been sitting beside him with nothing on only a few moments before, being seen without his shirt still made him self conscious. If she noticed his blush, she ignored it as she came over to touch the mostly healed wound n his arm. Her hands were warm against his skin. 

She wore a pair of loose trousers and a man's shirt unbuttoned at the neck. Her hair had been twisted back into a knot at the nape of her neck. When she took the cloth out of his hand to rub at a blood stain he hadn't been able to see, he caught sight of his mother's necklace hung around her neck. He reached out and touched it and she looked up at him. 

"It looks good on you," he said. 

"I like it. I shan't give it back," she said. 

"I wouldn't take it if you tried," he said with a laugh. 

She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. He folded his arms around her and held on. 

"Stay here tonight?" she asked. 

"Will's not going to be happy if I leave him to deal with Horace on his own," Jem said. 

"He can handle one dinner, can't he?" she asked. 

She rarely asked him for anything directly but here she was curled in his arms, asking him to stay. He pressed his lips to her hair and nodded. He hadn't realized that there was still panic clinging to her until it evaporated. 

"I'm yours tonight," he said. 

She laughed and tightened her hold on him, "Good." 

 


	65. A Change in the Magic

Jem woke up and rolled onto his back. Something had woken him but he couldn't say what it was. The house was quiet. There weren't even any sounds of the servants in the kitchen. He took a few deep breaths and the heaviness in his chest didn't abate. He ran his old mental checklists but couldn't find any injuries as he stretched joints and tested muscles up and down his body. 

The closest to a physical aliment was the tingling in his fingers. His arm was trapped under Tessa who was still sleeping. Whatever had woken him slipped his attention as he stared at her. Her hair was loose and her eyes shut. He rolled in to her and brushed a piece of hair away from her face. The feeling rippled again and he flinched but still couldn't find a source for it. 

The feeling wasn't unpleasant. It was like someone had grabbed his hand and was holding it tight but there was nothing holding him at all. It wasn't his hand. Something deeper. Something in his chest. 

"Tess," he said and he shook her shoulder gentle until she blinked up at him and smiled.

"Do you feel quite right?" he asked. 

"Good morning," she murmured and she shifted to press a kiss to his arm where it disappeared below her. 

"Tessa?" he said. 

"I feel wonderful," she said and she slid in closer to him and looped her arms around him and nuzzled his neck. He still felt different. His chest was too tight. Something was off. He kissed the side of her head. 

"Can you tell if the magic has changed? Is something with the spell different to you?" he asked. 

She woke the rest of the way up. She frowned and really looked at him. He cupped the back of her neck as they lay tangled together. She was calculating, trying to work through magic he couldn't see in the slightest. She was curious not worried and that eased his worry. Maybe this was an expected side effect of some kind. Her fingers traced a pattern on his chest. 

"Let me try something," she said. 

The magic pooling beneath his breast bone roiled.

He had to close his eyes and focus on his breathing to keep from vomiting. 

She drew back and took her magic with her. The feeling like something was trying to get out of him retreated. He rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand and breathed. Tessa pressed her forehead to his and he held her until he felt steady again. 

"What is it?" he asked. 

"It was an open ended spell and now it isn't," she said. 

"You mean it's complete now?" he asked and nausea rushed back into him with a wave of fear. 

"The magic feels complete," she said and she was just as wary as he was. Her feelings were written across her face. He reached out and pulled her in a little closer, wrapping his arms around her waist and hoping that it wasn't magic making his heart swell like this. She was scared but he was sure, so sure, that her feelings mirrored back his. It wasn't just some spell. This rush of emotion was real and true and nothing but them. 

He muttered into her neck, speaking in Chinese low and fast, almost a prayer, "I love you, I love you, it's real, it's always been real, I love you." 

"Do you want to test it?" she asked quietly. 

"No," he said and then changed his mind, "Yes." 

She shifted in his arms and played with the hair at the back of his neck. Each new nervous tick he uncovered felt like learning one of her secrets. Her anxiety matched his. Bound was one thing but a completed spell meant enslaved. He didn't feel different but maybe that was just because she hadn't put the magic to work and actually demanded anything of him. She looked up at him and then away twice before she gathered herself enough to do it. 

"Go open the door," she said. 

He felt that tug. 

A pull on his will. 

It was a good request, reasonable and important. She pushed intention into it. She fought him. Demanding with magic, not just words and he felt it. Felt it like it was building inside him. 

He pushed it down and away and stayed where he was. He held onto her and ignored the door until the tug disappeared. Relief rolled through him and he let out a laugh. Nothing had changed. The link was there, the power was there but it wasn't unavoidable. He was still himself. She laughed and tightened her hand in his hair to hold him a little tighter. He laughed with her and she used that hand in his hair to tilt his face until she could kiss him on the mouth. He melted into it. Rolling her back and settling in against her to kiss her harder. 

They might have stayed there all day but another pang went through Jem and this time Tessa jolted with it to. They broke apart and looked at each other. Jem propped himself up on his elbows and searched her face and her feelings to an explanation. 

"Is it because of-" he started but couldn't quite put everything they had done the night before into words. 

"No, something's changed in the spell. Like there's an extra direction where it is being pulled," Tessa said. 

She sat up and he moved with her without giving up the touch between them. Tessa's knees were still twisted up with his and he sat with his arm behind her back so they were cuddled together like this as well. The nearness of her was enough to distract him until another pang shot through the magic holding them together. He could understand what she meant about it being pulled in the wrong direction. 

"Nate had the ribbon with the runes on it. I remember the runes on it fading. Could it still hold power? Maybe he's redrawn the spell circle and is trying to use it to draw you out?" Jem asked. 

"Bastard," Tessa said and she sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. Resignation not anger. Barely stronger than annoyance. Like Nate was a puppy chewing up shoes. 

"After everything else he has done, this is just petty," Jem said which made her laugh again. 

"I'll see about making you some sort of ward. I don't know much about amulets and magic like that but it can probably be done. I've got some books downstairs to check," Tessa said. 

"It doesn't seem to be breaking through. I think I'll be fine as long as I don't get caught up in a battle. I want to go back to the Institute, check in. I had an argument with Will I need to smooth over," he said. 

"You don't argue with Will," she said. 

"His sister is a natural born Shadowhunter, as much as he is. Possibly even more. He thinks she needs to go home to the Welsh countryside and take up needlepoint. She doesn't agree. I might have sided with her in the argument and Will didn't seem pleased. We'll work it out, we always do. He even came around to trusting you," Jem said pulling her in for another kiss. 

Later. Later than they had intended, Jem dressed in borrowed clothing from her extensive closet. She had clothing for both men and women in a variety of sizes and he managed to find him a pair of pants that were long enough even if they needed to find a belt to keep them up. He frowned at his reflection as he put it back into place, paling his skin and making his hair silver again. 

Tessa didn't dress. She had thrown a robe on before dragging him into her closet which was really a small bedroom full of clothing hung up on racks. Once Jem and Will had followed a demon into a theatre and there hadn't been as many costumes back stage there as there were in this place. She had fussed and passed him things to try on over the screen in the corner. Getting dressed in front of her was somehow more embarrassing than getting undressed had been. She didn't seem to mind.

Once he was fully dressed she changed, shrinking and morphing in that unseeable way until she was an owl. She pushed up off the floor with those powerful wings and landed on the open window. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her head. She cocked it side ways to look up at him and he grinned. 

"I've never kissed a bird before," he said. 

She made a low hoot and ticked close along window sill to nibble at his ear with her beak. He laughed and pulled back from her. Her eyes were glassy and huge in this form and he couldn't read anything from them. He was itching to go back. Not that he suspected that Horace or the army of Shadowhunters had noticed his absence but because he needed to see Will, he wanted news of Charlotte, he wanted to know what was happening with the search. 

"Go, I'll meet you there," he said shooing her with his hand. 

He didn't see her housekeeper as he wound through the house and then out the front door. She hadn't given him a key or any instructions so he shut the door behind himself but didn't bother trying to lock it. As he walked back towards the Institute, he could see the owl circling above him. She stayed nearby even though she could fly faster than he could walk. 

He tilted his head back when he reached a part of town where the roads widened and when he caught sight of her, he mouthed the word, "Go." And then took off at a run. 

He was full of a giddy energy. Worried and haunted by the attack at the Gard but also happy. Happy to have her there wheeling above him to try to keep up. Happy to be able to run flat out. He had to weave through traffic but he had a glamour and skill on his side. She wouldn't have been able to keep up with him if he hadn't had to dodge around carriages and passersby and buildings. 

The pound of his boots, the swish of fabric as he spun sideways to avoid crashing into a woman in a crinoline twice as wide as she was, the sound of voices and wagon wheels. It all wove together into a clamorous symphony. The unease that had been plaguing him fell away against the rush of blood and the challenge of making it across a street without getting trampled by hansom cab headed north. 

He stopped a few blocks from the Institute and looked up, waiting for her. He was grinning and his heart rate was up but he wasn't tired which made him grin more. Being healthy was taking some getting used to. She swung into view above him and circled down to land on the eaves of a building nearby and look down at him. 

"Birds aren't very expressive," he told her, "I can't tell if you're looking at me with disapproval or if you found that as much fun as I did." 

She ruffled her feathers but that didn't help him make sense of her. Then her attention snapped off down the street and she took off again. He started to follow her but she went over the top of a tall row of houses and he couldn't see where she had gone. It had been the wrong direction for the Institute. 

He waited and that unease unfurled in his chest. That tug in the wrong direction was still there worrying at the edge of his attention and he couldn't ignore it for a moment. Waiting wasn't helping his nerves. He needed to go home. He needed to see Will. 

And with that thought he realized where the unease had been coming from. 

He needed to see Will. 

It wasn't about the spell. He had been worrying about the wrong bond, the wrong link. 

He needed to see Will. He took off at a run again. This time, it wasn't gleeful or giddy. He let the anxiety in and didn't bother trying to sort out whether or not it was his or Will's because it didn't matter. 

Parabatai bonds were not emotional links. Sometimes the sense of the other person was there but feelings didn't trickle down unless there was something intense happening. Even the stories Jem had heard of that were hearsay. It was discounted over and over by every book and ever expert. That wasn't how it worked. That's what everyone said. 

But this wasn't his anxiety. 

He rounded a corner and was brought up by a screech. 

The owl swirled down, unglamoured, just an animal making the crowd on the street part and gasp as she came to rest on top of a cart selling some kind of food that Jem wasn't paying enough attention to to identify. The shopkeeper waved a paper bag at her but she ignored him. She was watching Jem and he stared back at her. She hooted again. Not the war cry she had made while descending but loud. 

Of all the things Jem was expecting, it was Sophie who appeared from the crowd, following the sound and twisting her cap between her hands. Once she caught sight of Jem, Tessa took off and took off away from the Institute, silent and fast. The crowd watched her go, remarking on what strange behaviour it was to see an owl in broad daylight. 

"Sophie?" Jem said with a smile he didn't quite feel, "What's wrong?"

"It's Master Will," she said, "But we'd best not speak out here." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may at some point add a bonus chapter where I write all the sex they're having in this scene but it didn't feel quite right for this story. This story is firmly a YA adventure novel in genre so it gets implied sex instead of explicit sex. 
> 
> You know how sometimes I say, "and then it all went to hell" when I'm talking about my stories. This one probably has the most intense "and then it all went to hell" of anything I have written. 
> 
> *grins*


	66. Sophie's Story

Sophie insisted on getting as far away from the Institute as possible before she would explain anything and Jem took her back to Tessa's house. He didn't know where else to take her when she refused every cafe and park bench they passed like something was hunting her. Panic built but he kept it in check. He kept reaching back through the parabatai connection like it was something he could control, like it was something he could use to ask questions. He could feel Will's upset but nothing else. 

"Sophie. Please," he said when they stepped into the foyer. 

"Why are there so many of them outside the Institute? Was there another attack?" Tessa came down the stairs at a near run. She had made it back to the little house before they had. She was dressed like a perfectly respectable girl. A plain blue dress, her hair swept back in a plain twist. Hurried but neat. 

"I didn't see you come back," Jem said which was a stupid comment but he couldn't think of anything better to say. He hadn't even felt her turn back. His emotions were so churned up that he couldn't separate hers from the storm. He was little pieces of three people gathered into one body and spun together until each bled into the next. 

"They're waiting for you," Sophie said. 

"Me?" she said. 

"There was a package delivered this morning for you," Sophie said to Jem. Tessa took Sophie by the arm and firmly dragged her into the drawing room and pushed her down onto a settee. Sophie was so nervous she was shaking. She had a basket in one arm and Tessa pried that loose as well and sat beside her. Tessa put a hand on Sophie's back and took her hand. 

"Inside it was a blue ribbon with some writing on it," Sophie said, "They passed it around the table and Horace asked for you to be called down to see if you could make any sense of it. There was no return address and the courier seemed to have forgotten everything but his own name. You weren't there and Will said that you had had to spend the night at Magnus Bane's because of your health and how busy the Silent Brothers were. And they sent someone along to fetch you." 

"And I am not there," Jem said, "This is all because I am not at Magnus's? What happened to Will?"

He kept his voice gentle. It wasn't easy. He wanted to yell. He wanted to open valves and let all this anger out. He wanted to demand answers but Sophie's hands kept tightening around Tessa's and upsetting her farther would just be cruel. So he breathed and grabbed hold of Tessa's calm curiosity and kept his voice even. Even knowing that her calm was as much facade as his, he could still find it in the storm. An anchor of calm amid all his swirling worries. 

"Will picked up the ribbon. Everyone had been passing it around, discussing the runes and what they meant. He picked it up as well. It looked like a hat ribbon. Just a pretty thing," Sophie said. 

"And the magic jumped to him. The last of the spell absorbed into him as it was meant to be absorbed into Jem," she said. 

"He was holding it and arguing as Master Will does, trying to show that foul Horace up for something he had said that Will thought was quite wrong. No one noticed, not even him but then the runes were gone when Horace tried to take it back to show him something on it. They'd sunk through onto his skin," Sophie said with a shudder. 

"That's why it's pulling in the wrong direction," Jem whispered looking out in the direction of the Institute. He tried to feel that extra line of the spell, tried to grope along it until he could get a sense of Will as he had a sense of Tessa but it wouldn't resolve clearly. 

"So it's all come out then, what happened to you at the Lightwood party. It's because of the parabatai bond, I don't quite understand it but that's what they were all saying," Sophie said.

"The magic of the spell could feel the link and so it was trying to get to you through Will," Tessa said. "And then he got up in the middle of one of these discussions as to what had happened and opened a door. He just stood up, walked away from them all and opened the door." 

"Yes? How could you know that?" Sophie said looking up at Tessa. 

"Jem felt it when it changed. So did I. We thought perhaps my brother had found a warlock who could close the spell and lock the link in from a distance. We were afraid it meant that he would be enslaved so I gave him an order to test it," she said. 

"I was expecting it, it was easy for me to ignore but Will felt it as well," Jem said. "Does that mean that he's truly enslaved? Was the end of the spell somehow stronger than the beginning? I can feel what you feel, want what you want, but he got the obedience," Jem asked. 

"Clap," Tessa said and Jem clapped his hands together before looking down at them in confusion. She kept talking through his confusion putting as much certainty into her words as she good. He knew it was another facade but he wanted to be convinced too much to care. "He just wasn't expecting it. As you weren't there. I suspect that he could ignore me if he tried just as you can. It is likely weaker for him as he wasn't included in the original casting. It's just a little tail end of the magic." 

"What are they going to do to him?" Jem asked. 

"He's been taken down to the Silent City for some examination and to be interrogated with the Mortal Sword. Everyone is quite concerned that you've been working for Mortmain all this time. They think that Will's behaviour is proof that you aren't in control of yourself," Sophie said. 

Jem closed his eyes. Squeezed them shut. Forced himself to take in a gasp of air because he'd forgotten to breathe as Sophie spoke. His hands shook. Tessa was watching him. She had retreated farther into her own calm as though realizing that he needed it. Beneath that calm was something darker and uglier. Guilt or anger. It was painful but he couldn't quite see it through his own feelings. 

"What if I turn myself in?" Jem asked. 

"Do you think they'll treat you well?" Tessa asked and her voice was harsh. 

"They don't want to arrest Will. Will is innocent in all of this. It was me who was enchanted, me who has been keeping secrets. Me. Not him. If they have me," Jem said and then he stopped because none of that was true. He got up and walked to the window to lean against the sill for a moment before pacing back to the two girls and then spinning and dropping back into his chair. His stomach was a tight knot, "Anything I am guilty of, so is he. He is my parabatai, my crimes are his crimes.”

“Could you make a deal for me?” Tessa asked. 

Jem's stomach twisted as he stared at her. She meant it. It scared her but she meant it and that terrified him more than if she had just being saying it for him. And worse than that. Worse than all of it was that his mind started to turn over the possibilities of how that might work. He had never had a thought that made him hate himself so much. 

"It wouldn't do any good, it would only put you in danger. He is a threat to the Clave, as I am," Jem's voice was harsh as he sat back in the chair and stared at nothing.

"Neither of you are a threat to them," Tessa said and her flash of anger stabbed through him but didn't break the icy calm that was settling into place. 

"That the control can be fought might be proven, that you did not personally send the automatons to the Silent City or the Gard Hall might be proven if we can locate your brother, but nothing can be proven if there is no one to listen, Tessa," Jem said. 

"They love trials and fancy meetings, they have an entire building dedicated to it, there will be a trial," Tessa argued. 

"Perhaps," Jem said. 

"James Carstairs," she said. 

The tone, even more than the spark of fury in her, snapped him back into paying attention. Sophie looked concerned but Tessa was angry. Her posture stiff and her eyebrows drawn together. He sat up and frowned at her but it was happening at a distance, his attention was halfway down the parabatai bond as though if he was diligent enough with his attention, it would yield up answers from Will himself. 

"Are you suggesting we give up on him? Just let it go, let them sentence him as they will and hope that it turns out for the best? Your people may be less horrible than I once thought them but I hardly think that they can be trusted to decide in his favour. Even I know enough of them and of Will to know that there are those in the Clave who wouldn't mind him being made an example of. He's not particularly good at making friends," Tessa said. 

"I am not suggesting that! I would never abandon him, not to anything and certainly not to this. This is my fault. I pulled him into this, I will not turn away from that. But a half mad rescue attempt isn't going to improve his standing nor yours, nor ours," he said. 

"So we plan it out, you wanted to tell Mrs. Branwell the entire story, so we start with enlisting her help. She would help, wouldn't she?" Tessa said. 

"Charlotte doesn't break the law," Jem said at the same time that Sophie insisted, "Of course she would help." 

"We're not asking her to break the law, just to help ensure that Will does not take blame which he doesn't deserve," Tessa said. 

Jem looked between them. Sophie's nervous insistence and Tessa's anger. His thoughts were still too churned up but maybe there was a plan to be made somewhere in the middle of it all. They needed to clear Will's name without risking Tessa's life. There had to be a way to break the spell and once it was broken, then it could all be set back to where it should be. 

"Then we had best start planning," Jem said.


	67. What's Right

Tessa’s house had been traded for an empty flat farther from the river. It wasn’t nearly as nice, dingier and damper and nearly devoid of furniture. But Will had never been there and the Pandemonium Club didn’t know that it existed. There was no one to report on its location either intentionally or because the Mortal Sword pulled the truth out of their mouth.

Jem hated the thought of that. He had sat with the Mortal Sword only once. Some Inquisitor had decided that in order to understand the full extent of what had happened to his parents, a traumatized eleven year old needed to give the answers. It had been painful even though he hadn’t fought it. He had wanted to tell the truth, had believed it could bring some justice to his parents.

He kept having terrifying flashes of Will trying to fight it to protect him.

They walked by the Institute that evening, wearing other people's faces and pretending they couldn't see the sentries posted along the gates. Jem had never felt quite so dishonest about using the magic. He was a wanted criminal and this was helping him hide in plain sight. He must have stiffened or let some of the emotion show on his face because Tessa's hand tightened on his arm.

He looked down at her - the body she was borrowing was far smaller than her usual one - and waited for the feeling to pass. It didn't pass, not really, but he convinced himself to think around the guilt.

"This is not your fault," she said.

"It is but that doesn't matter," he said with a sigh. They had gone by the Institute now and were winding their way towards the Thames through an afternoon crowd.

"Jem, no don't do that to yourself," she said and though he couldn't feel her through her change, she wasn't guarding her expression. She blamed herself as much as he did and he could see it in her eyes. They were icy blue in her borrowed face but he could still see who she was in them. A flicker behind all her concern that he blamed her as well.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the crowd and into an alley that led to servants entrances. Without being asked and without waiting for him to do it, she threw a glamour against any passing mundanes. He took both her hands and steadied himself before he started to speak.

"My mother killed a nest of newborn demons and in response, the creature that had birthed them killed her and her husband and left her son a poisoned wreck that was going to die slowly," Jem said and Tessa's expression darkened even farther and he put a gentle finger on her mouth so she wouldn't stop him.

"If she hadn't destroyed that nest, it never would have come after us. Those demons would have found other people to torture and eat, far more than three, I am sure. My parents might still be alive but others would be dead and they would have abandoned their duty and their mission out of fear. That is not who they were and not who they wanted to be," Jem said.

"I could have turned you over to the Clave the first night you came to my window. Will could have turned us both over. Any one of us, even Charlotte and Henry could have told the truth about the spell. You could have chosen to go back to the mission you had set with your brother upon Mortmain's death. You could have chosen to allow Mortmain to kill your brother and continue to live and manage the Pandemonium Club. Any of those choices would have changed where we are right now but would any of them have made it better?" Jem said.

"I could have left you out of it," she said.

"And if you had, when the pyxis opened in the Gard Hall, you would not have been there to close it," Jem said.

"So it is all inevitable, we cannot possibly have stopped this from happening?" Tessa asked and he could almost see the cat in her with her ears twitching back and the fur down her back standing up. He leaned in and kissed her forehead.

"It has already happened and we all made the choices we did. We love who we love, we trust who we trust and we try to do what is right. Would you tell me that you haven't done that? In everything we have done, we have tried to do what would save lives and protect the people we cared about. We are not finished yet," he said.

“I know that. I’m here with you through whatever happens. We can make it right again,” she said with a small smile.

“Charlotte always said that the ‘law is hard but it is the law,’ and it is a sort of gospel among the Nephilim. We live and die by that law. You and I - and Will, him as well - we have not followed that law but we have done what is right. I believe that. Law or not. We have done right,” he said.

“Then let’s get on with this before we get ourselves caught,” she said holding out a hand to him. He took it with a rush of gratitude. He would not have survived this alone. He needed her as he had needed Will. When he looked back on it, he wouldn’t have survived the loss of his parents without Will.

He had accepted his death but never welcomed it. Tessa and this spell had given him back his future and he wasn’t prepared to let the Clave ruin that over a technicality in the law.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing Jem like this. Jem gives the best speeches on morality and goodness and love.


	68. The Only One Left

 Tessa broke them into a small empty shop not far from the Institute. It was a narrow place and bare to the walls. Some shelves were still tacked up but there wasn't enough evidence to say what kind of business it had once been. The sign on the front had claimed it was for lease though there weren't any footprints in the dust to hint that anyone had been through in a long time. 

They had made three passes by the Institute. Each time they wore slightly different faces and managed to collect a bundle of oddities from the Nephilim patrol who took for granted that the mundanes weren't paying any attention. Neither of them were good enough pickpockets to risk taking something off of one of the patrols but that didn't mean things didn't get dropped. Handkerchiefs and buttons, a buckle and even a dropped dagger someone would catch hell for losing. Tessa lay them out on the dusty counter in front of her and ran her hands over them considering her options. 

She kicked off her shoes before turning back into herself. She picked up the dagger and ran her hands over it. Jem watched her and the window to the street. No one would notice them back here but he still couldn't shake his anxiety. Something wasn't quite right and it was curling in the pit of his stomach. 

"I understand why you don't want to lock anyone in a closet, but I don't fancy being caught in the Institute wearing a false face only to have the owner of it come in through the back door," she said. 

"They'll be off chasing me, it will give you lots of time to get in, collect up as much information as you can and get out again," he said. 

"And I don't like that part of the plan either. What if they catch you?" she asked. 

"I am fast and I know these streets better than they do. Most of them are not local and even the Londoners never patrol around the Institute, we handle it all ourselves," Jem said. 

Jem looked away from her at the door again and then went to check the back room. They had done this when they had arrived but he did it again, checking the locks and the windows, pushing aside the one empty box left in the corner and finding nothing but spiderwebs. He stared down at them like they would hold any answers. 

"What's wrong? Did you hear something?" Tessa was standing in the door between him and the front room. He tore his eyes away from the dust and cobwebs. Her hair had fallen down and she was too tall now for her dress so it didn't even reach her ankles. 

"I feel wrong," he said. 

He didn't have a better word for it. It was like nausea but he didn't feel ill or perhaps it was a headache but that wasn't right either. He didn't realize he was clenching and unclenching his fists until Tessa took one in her hands and he fell still.

"Are you hurt?" she asked. 

He started to tell her he was fine but a wave of unease hit him. He closed his eyes and sucked in air, hoping to be able to say something. He held onto her hand and waited for it to pass. It ebbed away like water heading back out to sea. She was concerned and he held onto that emotion for a moment. He liked being reminded that she cared enough about him to worry. 

He started to smile, to say something reassuring.

But then it hit back. 

This time it wasn't an emotion masquerading as sensation. 

This was pain. 

True pain. 

The kind of pain he hadn't felt since his heart had stopped as he lay dying. 

It knocked him to his knees and he couldn't pull in air. He couldn't remember what his lungs were for. When he opened his mouth to try to force out words, he vomited. Beside him Tessa yelled but he still couldn't breathe and was collapsing, folding in on himself like there was something he needed to hold onto. He pulled her down with him. She fell to the floor beside him as he curled up over his knees and shook. 

There was something inside him and it was being pulled. Something that wasn't meant to be touched. 

It pulled and it pulled. 

Tighter. Harder. 

Then it snapped. 

The pressure was gone and air came back into his lungs in a long ragged gasp but the pain didn't change. 

Empty. Empty and so very painful. 

He fell sideways into Tessa. She made a small pained sound as she caught him. He pressed his face into her lap and shook. She touched his hair and talked to him. Her voice too tight but he couldn't pick out either the words or the emotion through the chaos in his head. 

He knew what had happened but there was a part of him that was refusing to admit it. If he didn't think the words, if he didn't say the words, then they couldn't possibly be real. He was still holding onto Tessa's hand and he let it go. She gasped again and pulled it away but her other hand was on his temple and he held onto that sensation and nothing else. 

"Jem," her voice was soft, coaxing. She spoke like he was a frightened animal. Injured and wild and unpredictable. It wasn't quite fear but there was something in her tone that cut through his haze and his vehement denial. 

"Jem, you're bleeding," she said. 

She pushed back his jacket and he knew where he was bleeding. He could feel the pain of it but he couldn't look at it. He pressed his face against her thigh as she gently undid the buttons of his shirt and brushed the blood away. 

"What does this mean?" she asked. 

"It means he's gone," Jem's voice was muffled and so very far away. It was all so very far away. 

"He's dead?" she asked. 

"No. No. It's worse than... that. That wouldn't feel like this," he said. He would not use her word. He couldn't use that word. "That would feel like hollowness. A tug and then empty. It's almost unnoticeable in a battle. I looked it up once. There are records of it happening. I needed to know, I needed to know how much I would hurt him when I died. I was always the one who would die." 

"What happened?" she asked. 

"I don't know, I don't know what they did to him," he said. 

He didn't lift his face. Didn't look at her, didn't look at the faded rune. He wasn't sure he would every be able to look at the faded rune. He was always going to die. Will was always going to live. Will was supposed to have forever. 

Jem curled himself around her. In the dust in the empty store room, blood drying sticky on his chest and his eyes still tightly shut, he wrapped himself around the only person he had left and started to cry. 


	69. A Magic Mirror

Jem sat in an attic room on a small bed and stared at a street scene in a mirror. It made him faintly nauseous to watch the way the world bobbed but he didn't tear his eyes away. Tessa wore a pendant to match the mirror and Sophie's face. He saw the bakery on the corner where he and Will had sometimes bought small treats to share when they had extra time as children. Under Shadowhunter law he was still three weeks away from adulthood but he didn't feel like a child anymore. 

Any last bits of his childhood had been swept away in that rush of pain and hollowness when the parabatai rune had been destroyed. He had struggled to explain it to Tessa because it hadn't been broken. It wasn't a severed bonding spell. It had been destroyed. The magical equivalent of a bomb going off on one side of a bridge. She had listened as he'd rambled through the grief and the anger and the guilt before he fell into tears or silence. It had happened more than once. 

"This way we'll know. They trust Sophie like you do, I'll just listen until we figure it out," Tessa had said. 

She hadn't gone wearing one of the guard's faces. She didn't need to listen to the strategists or the Clave officials for this. She needed to find Charlotte and Cecily and they would be more likely to talk to Sophie than they would a stranger from Idris. 

It didn't feel like a simple plan. It felt like an impossible risk and he'd refused to let her try for two days. Tessa had finally gone out and found Sophie at the market near the house and asked her permission. She'd come back with a pair of gloves and instructions on how to get into the servant's entrance. Jem had caved. His glamour wasn't good enough to go with her and so he was left with the little bespelled mirror letting him see what she saw. 

Tessa spoke in Sophie's voice as she helped Agatha and a tall thin redheaded woman named Bridgette, who seemed to be on loan from some other Institute, unload the groceries she had brought back. She made jokes and laughed along and eventually the other women shooed her out of the kitchen while they got down to making dinner. 

She set up a tea tray before she went, working as quickly and as efficiently as if she had been a maid for years. Then she tromped up the narrow servants stairs. Jem had a painful wash of homesickness when she stepped out onto the third floor landing. He couldn't go back there. It was the only home he had and he couldn't go back. Again. Maybe he'd spend his entire life losing home after home. Both the people and the places. 

"Hullo Mrs. Branwell," Sophie said pushing into one of the bedrooms after a quick knock. 

"Sophie darling, thank you," Charlotte was propped up in bed and covered in so many blankets it was hard to tell what her injury was. If Jem hadn't known, he never would have guessed the duvet covered a missing leg. She was pale and drawn and small but did not look weak. 

"It is good to have you home, ma'am," Sophie said. It was hard for Jem to remember it was Tessa speaking, she didn't sound like Tessa or behave like the Tessa. 

"Will you join me for some tea?" Charlotte asked and Sophie poured two cups and fluffed up all the pillows before sitting down near Charlotte to talk. They talked of the Institute and the search for the Gray siblings and all the theories of Will and Jem and bonding spells. They did not actually speak of what had happened to Will. 

Jem suspected that Sophie knew and one transformation was all it had taken for Tessa to find out as well. She had still insisted on going and he wasn't entirely sure why. 

He understood now. 

"Have you heard anything of Jem? Have they found him at least?" Sophie asked. 

She had sat so that Jem had a clear view of Charlotte and he could see her expression change at the mention of his name. He held the mirror a little more tightly. This was the closest thing he would ever get to a real goodbye. 

This wasn't really about Will. This was Tessa giving him a chance to see everyone again. The words Charlotte spoke, worries and fears and impossible hopes that he might be brought home safely, blurred together but he still understood them. 

"And at least he has that girl. Horace and his ilk don't want to hear it but what happened would have been worse if it hadn't been for all three of them, shapeshifting warlock child included. They can make William sit with the Mortal Sword for another twenty four hours if they want to and it won't change an inch of his story or the truth. If it takes twenty years, I'll have their names cleared. All of them," Charlotte said. 

Tessa reached out and squeezed Charlotte's hand before she went downstairs again. This time she picked up a sandwich from the kitchen and went down into the crypt to find Henry. He was tinkering with some contraption of metal and wood that Jem couldn't even start to identify. Tessa's pendant couldn't get a clear view of it as she brought Henry the food. 

"Is that to help Mrs. Branwell?" Tessa asked.

"It is!" Henry said with a ghost of a smile. He went on about prosthetic legs and the problem of knees and materials for a long time before he trailed away into muttering over some new idea. Tessa left him to his work and then went wandering. Jem couldn't figure out what she was doing until she finally went up to the training room. 

It was busy. Most of the Institute was quiet with everyone out looking for the girl wandering through their servant's halls. The few who had stayed behind had all congregated into the training room to run drills. Tessa startled at the noise of it. The pendant bounced as she jumped back out of the way of a pair of sparring women with staves. 

Tessa slipped in passed them and found Cecily by the window. She was slamming small knives into a case and had a dark look on her face. 

"May I speak with you a moment, Miss Herondale?" she said. Cecily's eyes flashed up to meet hers and Jem had another flash of homesickness, this time because those eyes reminded him of Will. He slipped his hand into his shirt and rubbed the parabatai rune. It just felt like the rest of his chest but that didn't stop him from touching it over and over again. Like prodding a wound that no longer hurt.

Cecily took Sophie's interruption as an excuse to escape. She stomped out of the training room and down the stairs to her bedroom where she ushered Sophie inside and then slammed the door. 

"What?" she asked. 

Tessa ignored her and crossed the room to open the large window. Jem couldn't tell exactly what she was doing but he got the impression she was sitting on the window sill, it wasn't exactly proper behaviour for a servant. When she spoke it was in Sophie's voice but that eerie calm tone Tessa had used the first night Jem had met her. 

"How's Will?" she asked. 

"Not dead for which I am meant to be thankful," Cecily spat back. 

"Have you seen him?" she asked. 

"No, no one sees him, not for at least the first year of initiation," Cecily said, "Why do you care?" 

"William Herondale was a friend to me when I had none. I will not forget that," she said. 

Cecily had been brushing out her hair, something Sophie should have volunteered to do for her, and whirled around. Her eyes were narrowed and suspicious. She was angry and hurt and far too clever for Tessa to be playing with like this. Cecily had come from Wales to save her brother from the Shadowhunters only to have him snatched away again, would not be tricked with little verbal games.

"You're not Sophie," she said in a flat voice. 

"No," Tessa said. 

"You shouldn't be here. If I scream, I'll have half the Institute in here in a minute," she said. 

"It takes less than ten seconds to make the change. I'll be gone before anyone gets here. I can fly. You can't, neither can any of the loud stomping people in that training room," Tessa said. 

"What are you going to do, finish what you started? Enslave me as well? If you can't have the two boys, at least you can still have your pair of Shadowhunter slaves?" Cecily asked. 

"Do you believe that? Do you think Will believed that?" Tessa asked. 

Cecily huffed and threw the hair brush. Tessa jerked and Jem didn't see where the brush landed but he assumed it sailed harmlessly past her shoulder and out the window. Cecily dropped down on the stool in front of her vanity. A glare and black gear and her hair a tangle around her face all against the backdrop of lace and hairpins and the gilt frame of the mirror. She was an alarming study in contrasts. 

"No," Cecily said finally, "But that doesn't explain why you're here."

"Your brother never cared enough for himself. I didn't know him long but I knew him enough to know that. Everyone else is more important than he is, even a criminal like me. He cares for everyone but himself but he cares for Jem and you more than anything else. I can't do anything to help him. Not where he's gone. Any rescue we might attempt will make things worse for him not better. So the only other thing I can think to do on his behalf is to help you," she said. 

"I don't need your help," Cecily growled. 

"Not now and maybe not in your lifetime but I am immortal Miss Herondale and if it isn't for five generations, I will still come to the aid of your great-great-grandchildren should they require it," Tessa said. She slipped the necklace she was wearing off and Jem could see Sophie's face as Tessa held it in her hands. 

"And the catch?" Cecily said. 

"This is a debt I am paying, not a debt that you will owe," Tessa said and then she extended the necklace. All Jem could see in his mirror was the ceiling. "This can't be tracked. I was careful to be sure that it cannot be tracked back to me or even the person who created it. It is a two way spell, a clever bit of faerie magic, not warlock. It can be closed and if you shut it away and never open the casing again, we will see nothing but black. But if you ever need help, you can open it up and if you do it at dusk or at dawn, I will answer it. I will come to you if you need me to."

"So who's watching us right now?" Cecily asked. 

"Jem, no one else. It is connected to a mirror. He has the mirror. He can see what is in view of the locket and he can hear us as long as it is open," she said. 

The ceiling in Jem's view tilted and after a moment of vertigo, he was looking at Cecily as she tilted the pendant and examined it. Side to side. Like watching the ocean through a porthole. He looked away from the mirror. He had not thought to offer this but Tessa was right. Will would want his sister protected before all else. Cecily couldn't hear him, the magic didn't work like that but he said it anyways, "Thy people shall be my people, soror mea," a line from the parabatai oath and he added on the extra bit of Latin. If, where ever Will was, he couldn't be there for her, then Jem would watch over her as though she were his little sister. 

"If you can argue your way down into the Silent City to see him. If anyone can convince them to break the rules it will be you and Charlotte. Please take this with you, for Jem. Even if Will doesn't know, it'll be a way for them to see each other again," Tessa said. 

Cecily looked up from the pendant and Jem heard the window close and then the sound of swishing skirts as Tessa crossed the room. 

"Oh, one last thing, Miss Herondale. I'll be leaving in about an hour, through the servant's entrance. I suppose you could have me arrested in that time but if you choose not to take that route, Jem and I are going to go and see your parents and tell them the entire story. Of curses and horrors and all the rest. I will take to them anything you want to send," Tessa said and then she was gone. Jem didn't see her go, the pendant’s view was obscured by Cecily's fingers. He heard the door open and shut and then room went quiet. 

"I liked you Mr. Carstairs but I think everything might have been better if no one in my family had ever met you," Cecily said and then she snapped the cover onto the pendant and the mirror went dark and silent. 

Jem kept staring at it anyways. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adore Cecily. 
> 
> I never cared much for her in canon, she always seemed like an added on character just to show Will's character growth but writing her? God I love her more with every paragraph.


	70. The Silent City

They left London that week, taking the train wearing other people’s faces. Jem kept the mirror on hand but it never showed anything but a velvet black that didn’t even reflect his face. They were bound for York and an old manor house that the Herondale family had inexplicably been gifted by Mortmain not long before his death. They had stories to tell and Jem wasn’t looking forward to it.

As they sat in the empty compartment and watched the scenery rush by, Jem heard faint voices. He wondered how close to “ogre” he could make himself look with his borrowed magic. Probably enough to chase off anyone coming up the hallway. He did not want to talk to other people. He had even found it difficult to talk to Tessa in the last few days. She didn’t seem to mind. When words failed him, he just reached out and took her hand and she’d give him a little smile that reminded him that he wasn’t alone and that was enough.

“There isn’t anyone in the corridor,” Tessa said craning her neck to look out the little panel of glass in the door.

Jem scrambled for his bag. It was a single suitcase packed into the overhead compartment beside his violin. That is what Tessa had been going to get after she’d left Cecily with the pendant. She had come back from the Institute that afternoon with his violin and a letter from Cecily and then had told him exactly what had happened. He’d put enough of it together from things Charlotte and Henry had said that it wasn’t a shock but it had still hurt to hear it all laid out.

He pulled the bag down with a heavy thump onto his seat and dug out the mirror. It showed a long stone corridor and the four figures. One leading, shadowy and indistinct in the poor light. One pushing a wheeled chair and only the very top of a head was visible over the back of it. Someone walked along beside the chair.

“While I am sure you did an admirable job, Horace, Will was my charge for five years, I am not going to sit by idly without hearing his story for myself. I’m sure you can understand that,” Charlotte said from where she sat on what must be a wheelchair. Horace, Jem couldn’t see his face but recognized his voice as he started rambling on about the questioning they had put Will through. Jem’s hands tightened on the mirror frame and Tessa pried one of them loose to hold in both of hers to keep him from smashing it by accident.

“I didn’t think she’d ever open it again,” Tessa said, whispering though there was no way for anyone in that dark place to hear them.

Jem didn’t answer her. The corridor opened up to the room of the Speaking Stars and where he had once sat while the the Silent Brothers had told him that there was no cure and he could expect only about three years to live. They were in the Silent City.

Because that was where Will was.

They passed the Speaking Stars and the empty dais and kept going, winding deeper into the city. Jem could remember the smell of the place and the way that sounds vanished rather than echoed. The sound of footfalls and rustling clothing swallowed up by the pressing silence. He had all but forgotten the train around them, the rattle of wheels and the buzz of the wind past the glass, even the smell of varnish and coal smoke. All his attention was there, in that impossible place underground.

Cecily was left to wait outside a narrow door in a hallway full of identical doors. She fidgeted for a little while before lifting the pendant up and raising an eyebrow at it. It would have shown her nothing but the velvet black of the empty mirror but she held eye contact for a moment.

“Thank you,” Jem told her.

Someday they would find a way to make it all right and he would thank her properly.

She dropped the pendant and the view in the mirror swung wildly as it settled back against her chest. She didn’t turn. She was facing the opposite wall and the stones there were all that Jem and Tessa could see.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” she said to whatever had startled her.

It must have been a Silent Brother because they heard nothing as he whispered his side of the conversation directly into Cecily’s head. They heard only her answers, “Of course he hasn’t. You can’t very well force something like this on someone and expect them to embrace it now can you?”

A silent answer to which she retorted, “Well, you can refuse me permission but I don’t see why it makes such a difference whether it is me or Charlotte or the butler. If we’re interrupting your precious initiation, then we’re interrupting. I’m not leaving until I’ve seen him. Are you going to drag me out by my hair? Or is that too barbaric even for people like you?”

“She certainly knows how to make friends, doesn’t she?” Tessa said and it startled Jem out of the moment so much he snorted out a little laugh.

“Tempers run in the family, evidently,” Jem said.

Cecily crossed her arms over the pendant so all they could see was blue fabric and if the Silent Brother beside her said anything else, Cecily ignored him. When the door finally opened beside her, no one argued with her when she stepped inside. Charlotte had arranged something because they left her alone.

It was a small room, narrow and low ceilinged. A desk and a bed and nothing else. Will sat on the desk chair and Jem couldn’t pick out anything different about him until he stood to meet his sister. He moved wrong. Will was lazy mannerisms thinly veiling coiled energy. Even at rest, he was more like a panther than anything else. Potentially dangerous and intentionally beautiful. He moved now with a quiet grace but it was wrong somehow and it set Jem’s teeth on edge.

“Have you come to say goodbye? Are you going home?” Will asked and even his voice was wrong. Dry and even and emotionless.

“No,” Cecily said, “Unless you’re planning on coming with me.”

“To leave in my current state has been determined to be too much of a threat to the Clave,” Will said.

“You’re not leaving as a Shadowhunter, they undid all the runes on Papa, they’d do the same to us. We would leave as humans. Just people. We wouldn’t be a threat if we were just humans,” Cecily said.

“Even without the runes, it is not an option I have been given,” Will said.

“I don’t understand why,” she said. Cecily spun away from him and stormed around the small room, the pendant swung as she gestured and turned and they could see almost nothing. “Shadowhunter law punishes the victim for the crime. You have done no wrong. You have been stolen from, you haven’t done the stealing. Jem did nothing wrong either. Even the warlock girl, it is her fault but she did not commit the crime either. And yet, either of them did worse than you. So why are you, who is blameless in all this, being held here?”

“I am not truly blameless Cecily but it does not matter. The Law is not concerned with blame. It is concerned with what is right. This spell is not right. It has nothing to do with the participants. It is less like a robbery and more like living in a condemned building. The constables will throw you out not because you did anything wrong but because the building is to be destroyed,” he said.

He crossed the room to her, getting closer until they could no longer see his face because he was standing too close to the pendant. Jem could imagine him though, holding onto his sister’s hands or cupping her face as he spoke.

“There were only so many choices available to me,” he said, “And this is the one that I have made. I made it, Cecily. The marks of the Brotherhood protect me against mind control and they also allow me to be of some use. I could have chosen to sit in a cell until the Clave found them and killed her to free us both or killed them both because that is what the law demands. This is not the life I would like best, but someday, I will be able to leave it behind again. Many initiates do not complete their initiation. It won’t be so strange.”

“And you wouldn’t sit in a cell because you hope they are never found,” Cecily said in a dark voice.

“I am hoping for a third choice. Charlotte is full of plans. If you will be staying among the Shadowhunters, you can trust her,” Will said.

“I will be staying until you are free of this, you had best accept that,” Cecily said.

“And if I must, then so I shall,” Will said, “Never go out alone, find someone to watch your back, train properly, properly Cecily, don’t rush it, and find things to make you happy.”

“This isn’t goodbye,” she snapped at him.

“It is cariad, just not forever,” Will said.

And then there was a knock at the door and the Silent Brothers were back and Cecily was being whisked away. She argued but Will was out of ear shot and as sympathetic as Charlotte was there was nothing to be changed. She snapped the pendant shut again in the carriage, cutting off the scene and leaving Jem and Tessa with nothing to stare at but the empty velvet black.

Tessa took one of his hands and rubbed his knuckles with her fingers as he kept looking at it.

“It’s different to see it,” he said after a long silence.

“But he’s just an initiate, that means he’ll still be himself,” Tessa said and it was half question, half declaration.

Jem looked at her. Will was her friend and she was his. She was terrified by the Silent Brothers and they’d gone and taken one of her only friends and made him into one of them. For Jem, the Silent Brothers were healers and archivists first and foremost but for Tessa they had never been anything but horrors. He put the empty mirror down and pulled her closer with an arm around her shoulder.

“There is nothing that could stop Will from being Will. He’ll still be himself,” he said. And if it had been half question, half declaration from her, it was half declaration and half prayer from him.

She didn’t say anything, didn’t question him. She just held his hand and stared at the English countryside rolling away beyond the window.


	71. Epilogue: In the Years Since

 When Clarissa Fray followed Isabelle Lightwood down into the Silent City, she was surprised to find a cat sitting in the path ahead of them. He was bright white with green eyes that didn't seem to see them. Another joined it a moment later, this one orange but just as silent.

"You people don't worship cats like some sort of crazy cult do you? Fluffy here doesn't look like a great healer," Clary said.

"The cats aren't like that, they've always been here," Isabelle said with an elegant shrug. As they approached, the two cats turned and led them down the path, walking in step, "There was an attack on the Silent City a hundred years ago and the cats got in back then. They've never left. But they're all a little weird, don't touch them."

As they were leaving again, the name Magnus Bane in hand, a Silent Brother stopped them just inside the gates. Clary inhaled sharply. He had appeared from no where. There were runes on his face and his mouth was stitched shut like they all were but he still had hair and wasn't quite as cold somehow. One of the cats sat on his shoulder. A calico with green eyes. She meowed once, the first sound Clary had heard that didn't come from Isabelle or herself.

The Silent Brother opened his eyes.

Clary gasped and even Isabelle shifted beside her. His eyes were blue. Deeply, vibrantly blue. He lifted the cat off his shoulder and pet her head once before putting her on the ground beside Isabelle's spike heel. Clary was still staring at him. They didn't have eyes. They weren't even human. But he looked at them with human eyes for another moment. She was sure, sure, that if he could have smiled, if his mouth wasn't stitched shut, he would have given them a grin. There was something about the look in his eyes that said he found it all very funny.

He closed his eyes and lifted his hood and turned away.

"Don't be such a creep, Zachariah," Isabelle yelled after him and he raised a hand like he was waving.

"Who was that?" Clary asked.

"Zachariah," Isabelle said, "He's a distant relative. Helps out with the family sometimes. I heard he punched dad after the uprising. I would have loved to have seen that. A Silent Brother punching someone sounds hilarious. He's like 200 years old but there's something wrong with him that he can't be like the rest of them. So he's a bit of a smart ass and he's actually silent. They sealed his mouth before he could do the mind to mind talking but then he never learned it or he can’t do it or something. Silent smart ass.”

"And the cat?" Tessa asked.

"I guess he's putting her out, I don't think there are any rules for the cats," Isabelle said and then she pushed open the gates. The cat scampered up the steps ahead of them and waited at each turn to be sure they were coming with her. She kept pace with them back almost to the Institute before she veered off to the right and disappeared down an alley. Clary stopped to watch her go but it was getting dark and she vanished into shadows.

She put it all out of her mind, she still had Magnus Bane to find and then her mother.

 

* * *

 

“How desperate are we?” Isabelle asked. The boat around them was shaking. Clary was down below somewhere and it was killing Izzy not to know where or what was happening. There were more demons than she had ever seen in her life if she hadn’t started training almost at birth, she might have panicked.

“What are my options for answers?” Alec asked.

“Old family legend kind of desperate?” Izzy asked holding up the pendant on a swinging chain. She’d opened it once when she’d got it. At high noon because the old family legend said you were best to open it between sunrise and sunset if you wanted an answer.

“It’s bullshit,” Alec said.

But the battle raged on and she was separated from Alec by a wave of something with skittering arms and she hoped like hell that the splash she heard wasn’t him hitting the water. She decided that she was that desperate. She spun away from the last demon as it exploded into ichor and slammed her way into a little lookout tower with a glass door. Somehow the walls were all still in place.

She opened up the little pendant. A locket with nothing inside but smooth black glass.

“This is the dumbest shit I have ever tried,” she told it, “But if you’re out there, we could use a hand. Grandma always said you answered if we called. So I’m calling.”

She couldn’t remember, not while she was full of adrenaline and the ichor was burning through the sleeve of her gear and probably leaving scars, if there were magic words. She held the pendant up. Looked into that matte black glass and then flipped it and showed it the war zone spread out below her.

“That’s all you get, I’ve got to find my brother and my,” what was Clary? She still hadn’t found exactly the right word, girlfriend was too much but there wasn’t really a word for friend-that-I-accidentally-kiss-sometimes, “Clary. See you.”

Then she snapped it shut and plunged back into the battle. Fighting her way up the ship towards the stairwells. She needed to find Clary and she needed to find her now.

She never saw them herself. Alec and Magnus mentioned it later as did the surviving Clave members who had come to the battle. A girl with fire in her hands and a boy with a pair of long runed blades and a fighting style that wasn’t quite like a Shadowhunter’s. Maybe they had been Downworlders passing by who had just stopped to help but no one quite believed that.

“Not bullshit. The spirits of our ancestors answered my call, I bet they wouldn’t have come if you had called them,” Isabelle told Alec later, waving the pendant in his face. He’d just rolled his eyes at her.

 

* * *

 

On the plains of Brocelind, it was Simon who saw them. They had been in the Great Hall and while they’d watched as Clary had drawn runes and bound Downworlders to Nephilim. The girl with her hair pulled back in a tight braid had whispered to the boy and he had let a half smile creep across his face. They hadn’t had it done themselves and Simon had been running around, trying to convince those who refused to join up so Clary wouldn’t have to fight with them later.

“It wouldn’t work on us,” the girl said in a British accent.

“It will work on anyone,” Simon said though he didn’t actually know if that was true.

“I’m honestly surprised anyone in the Clave agreed to it,” she said.

“People are ever capable of learning, of being better than they were,” the boy said.

"I almost believe that looking at them like this," she said.

Simon eventually had to leave them be. He saw them again at the party after the dust had settled. Magnus had waved them over but they hadn’t come for introductions. Instead they’d waved and vanished into the dark, hand in hand. 

 

* * *

 

It turned out that the High Warlock of London was a tall thin man who looked alarmingly young. Barely more than 20 if he was that. Younger even than Magnus. Dark hair streaked through with silver and eyes so deeply brown they were almost black. Something about the shape of his eyes hinted at a heritage farther east than the Thames but when he spoke it was with a cultured British accent. At his side, perched on the edge of the chair, was a massive snowy owl.

Alec frowned at him. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting but a boy with a bird wasn't it. Then, Magnus hadn't looked like he had expected either. At least this boy wasn’t dripping glitter.

"You could at least say hello," Magnus said and the boy grinned. The owl pushed off with a great flap of wings and when she landed in front of Magnus she wasn't a bird, she was a wolf. Waist high and white as snow. Alec took a big step back. Maybe he'd been wrong to the think the boy was the warlock or maybe this was all a glamour.

"Go get dressed, I want you to actually meet him. Less showy posturing," Magnus said.

The boy at the table laughed. Bright and happy and maybe just a little bit mocking, "You are one to talk. Did you know that the first time I met him he was dressed up like Voltaire and spoke in riddles?"

"You were asking for miracles, the only answer to someone asking for nonsense is nonsense," Magnus said and he shooed the wolf with his hand. She stalked away. Not a werewolf. A wolf. Smaller and sleeker than a werewolf. Alec had never seen a wolf before, not the animal kind.

What came back into the room was a girl. About the same age as the boy and just as human. They looked like they should be studying at a university cafe somewhere. Even their apartment seemed normal. If Alec hadn't seen her change, he wouldn't have believed there was anything magical about either of them.

"Alec Lightwood, this is Theresa and James Gray," Magnus said a little more formally than he might have if he was introducing Alec to just about anyone else. On their world tour, they'd met a few of Magnus's friends but not many and something about these two and how Magnus acted with them made them seem special.

"Jem is fine," James said crossing the room to shake his hand

"Tessa," she added.

"So how much longer are you going to be doing this?" Magnus asked with a wave that seemed to encompass anything and everything.

"They haven't found a replacement for Ragnor yet," Tessa said with a shrug, "So it will be awhile longer but hopefully not too much. I think we're doing more damage than good. There are still those in the Clave who want us pushed out of this job. I’ll admit that it's kind of fun to go to meetings at the Institute and watch the older ones stare at us like we're contagious."

"Why would they look at you like that?" Alec asked.

Tessa was conjuring a tea set and she looked up at Magnus as though asking permission. He shrugged and dropped down on the sofa.

"We're Shadowhunters, both of us, him more than me but even I am Nephilim enough to make them uncomfortable," she said.

"You were just a bird," Alec pointed out.

"My mother was a Shadowhunter, my father was, emphatically, not. I consider myself more warlock than anything else but I have a Shadowhunter name and I committed a very particular treason a very long time ago when I stole Jem away. They'll never trust either of us, even though everyone who was there when it happened is dead and gone," Tessa said and she handed him a teacup.

The conversation turned to other things and no one explained what sort of treason had been committed. Alec didn't push it but it needled at him.

"You're Nephilim but you are immortal?" Alec asked Jem as the evening drew to a close and Tessa and Magnus sat arguing metaphysics and laughing in the next room. Jem was loading a dishwasher as he spoke and Alec attempted to help.

"I am, I suppose, though the spell that binds us makes me a little less human than I might be," he said and took a bowl from Alec. He changed his face, his hair falling longer and lighter and his chin changing shape. Alec froze, dish still in hand and stared. Jem shook it off, back to his own face, and pried Alec's fingers off the bowl with a smile. "I have a little of her magic and my life is tied to hers. If she dies so do I. It is as it is but I wouldn’t recommend it. I can see the way you look at Magnus and I can see those thoughts."

"I would never give up what I am. It’s just that I thought it was impossible," Alec didn't look at him. He looked out a window and could just make out the London Eye over the buildings between.

"It is a binding spell, a slavery spell. I am no longer what I was. I am no longer one of the Clave. I am no longer one of their warriors. I no longer have a parabatai or any right to my family name. I gave up what I was. I am not a vampire or a werewolf but that does not mean that I am truly still Nephilim. Nephilim is more than blood," Jem said.

"You seem happy enough," Alec said.

"I didn't choose it, and I suspect that makes a difference. Neither of us chose this but we do the best with the hand we are dealt. To choose it is to risk that it might work, that you might end up bound by an entire spell rather than the fragment that holds Tessa and I together. You risk your free will as well as your status as a Clave member. There is a reason these magics are illegal," Jem said.

Alec tried very hard to let that thought go.

 

* * *

 

  
Almost all the Silent Brothers were dead. Less than twenty existed worldwide. The Nephilim had never suffered a loss so devastating. Clary was surprised to see the blue-eyed one she had met the day Izzy had taken her down into the Silent City, waiting with Maryse. His cat was at his heel. Sitting calm and curious and distinctly uncatlike. The rest of the cats had scattered, hissing at Luke and vanishing into the dark corners ahead of them but this one didn’t seem to care.

“Brother Zachariah is an archivist but he will be assisting with the,” Maryse hesitated for just a fration before she chose the word, “interrogation.”

Brother Zachariah gave Clary a strange look. Like the smile he had given her before but this look wasn’t happy. They were going to go and wake the dead, there was no smile on his face but the expression in his eyes was intense, eloquent somehow. How many words were trapped after two centuries of silence? She had never seen another Silent Brother and found herself wondering at who they had been before but Zachariah was more of a person than the others.

When he turned to lead them deeper into the Silent City, he moved with all the silence of the Brothers she had met before. Those human eyes didn’t mean that he was truly human. When he paused at the doorway to a room Maryse had called the Ossuarium. She followed him inside to see the body of the dead Shadowhunter.

When it was over, when the man was dead again and Luke was leading Clary out of the room, she overheard Maryse talking to Brother Zachariah.

“Will you complete your initiation?” she asked.

Clary turned back to see Brother Zachariah tilt his head to the side and then shake it very slightly before turning and gliding away. His cat jumped up to a rail then a shelf and then landed on his shoulder, curling her tail around his neck as they went.

“Izzy said he was two hundred, does initiation usually take that long?” Clary asked.

“Not unless you refuse the rites,” Maryse said but didn’t volunteer any more details as she led them away.

 

* * *

 

Clary had lost the fight. Sebastian had taken the sword, her sword that burned with the fires of heaven and he had stabbed her with it. It should have killed her but it didn’t. It left her with fire in her veins and it had hurt but her body had taken the heavenly fire in and made it a part of her.

“Flaming girlfriend!” Isabelle had said at some point after everyone was sure that Clary would survive.

“Speaking of which, have you mentioned to your parents that they have two flamingly homosexual children?” Clary asked.

“No, I haven’t. Shut up. Go back to being unconscious, you’re cuter when you’re not talking,” Izzy told her and Clary threw a pillow that hit her in the face and made them both cackle with laughter.

The fire was unpredictable and she couldn’t even come close to controlling it but when she fell with a wound that spouted flame on the plain outside the Iron Sister’s Citadel, that blue eyed Silent Brother attempted to save her life and the fire tried to kill him as well. Whether it was his attempts to save her, Isabelle’s iratze or just luck that saved her, she didn’t know but she woke up to a pounding headache.

She argued her way into see Zachariah who looked at her with a human face, an unsealed mouth and those same blue eyes. She asked him a hundred questions, asked the Silent Brother who was trying to convince her to return to bed a hundred more. Zachariah finally stopped her with his hands on her shoulders.

“Thank you, Miss Fairchild,” he said in a soft rasping voice as though he no longer quite remembered how to use his voice. Then he turned her around and pushed her back towards her room without another word. The weight in the way he had said thank you surprised her enough that she let herself be pushed out without realizing what was happening until his door was shut.

 

* * *

 

Emma Carstairs stumbled on the steps of the Gard, the man who helped her up was a stranger though he knew her name. He carried throwing knives and had the runes of the Silent Brothers on his cheeks. Black hair and dark eyes and pale skin.

“They are your family,” he said of Jules and the Blackthorns crowded behind her, halfway up the steps and waiting for her.

“I want to fight,” she said.

“And you will, Miss Carstairs, I know that you will. Carstairs always do but right now it is more important to protect your family and your parabatai. Let the ones you love come first, I hope that you will always have that luxury,” he had said.

Once she was in the doorway, she turned to look back at him but he was gone, off to fight the battle that she was being kept from because she was too young.

  

* * *

 

“You can come back to New York with us,” Isabelle suggested.

Zachariah looked up at her from where he sat by a window in Jia Penhallow’s house. He had a book on his knee and wore old fashioned black trousers and a gray shirt. Clary lingered in the door, not sure if this was a conversation that she was welcome in.

“You’re a Lightwood right? Way back when? Family is family,” Isabelle pressed.

“If we were to draw a family tree, you would be a niece, my sister’s son’s son’s,” he waved a hand to show the ridiculous number of greats that would be in their familial title.

“Family is family,” Isabelle repeated.

“Thank you,” he said. “A very long time ago my sister and Charlotte Fairchild tried to do what the two of you succeeded in doing by accident. I would never chosen the life of the Silent Brothers but there is no one left after the massacre to tell me that I must return to the dark. At least no one with the authority to enforce it. There's been quite a lot of peer pressure and talk of duty but there's only so much duty one can stomach in a lifetime, even if that lifetime has been as long as mine.”

“Why didn’t you leave right after they were all killed, then?” Clary asked.

“To abandon the Clave in the midst of a war? I was always a bit of a bastard but even I could not find the will for that kind of desertion within me,” he asked turning his attention back to her.

“Oh, yeah, right,” she said.

“I did though, think about it,” he said with a smirk. “But now, your heavenly fire has unmade my membership. I am not a Silent Brother and I would not choose to return.”

“So where are you going to go?” Izzy asked.

“Home,” he said.

“Somewhere in England then?” she asked.

“Last I heard, they were actually somewhere in the south of China,” he said.

“Who?” Clary asked.

He tilted his head just slightly to the side, “Have you decided yet if you will be parabatai or lovers?”

“What?” Clary sputtered.

“My apologies, I thought we were asking probing personal questions,” he said.

His calm, old fashioned to the point of being stilted British accent made him seem serious as a priest. Only a few weeks ago he had been a near statue. Clary gaped at him then he smirked.

Izzy started to laugh. She wrapped an arm around Clary’s shoulder and pulled her in tight and said, “I don’t think I’m the parabatai type.”

Clary sputtered again but Izzy kept her arm around her shoulder and Zachariah gave them both a smile. He stood, folding the book and putting it on the window sill. Of all the things, it was a copy of Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities. He was very tall and even Izzy in her heels needed to tilt her head back to look at him.

“I leave the Clave and the family legacy in your well manicured hands. Cecily would be proud if she ever had a chance to meet you or your brother and for that I am very glad," He pointed at Clary, "And while your legacy is not as full of pot holes as the Lightwood’s you walk in Charlotte’s steps and as the Clave was better for having her in it, so to will it be better for you and all you have done and will do, Clary."

“Is it true that you punched my father?” Izzy asked.

“Yes, it is apparently against many of the Silent Brother's Rules and Charters. I got in a rather large spot of trouble over it,” he said. “I also once broke the arm of the boy my sister eventually married. I’m a terror and should not be allowed around my extended family at any cost. If you’ll excuse me, I must figure out how to purchase plane tickets.”

“What about your cat?” Izzy asked.

“We’ll find each other again,” he said and then he waved and slipped out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *looks up from the ebook omnibus and a list of search terms a half a mile long*
> 
> *throws hands up in the air* 
> 
> (I know TID inside and out, I do not know TMI that well, figuring out where to slip Jem and Tessa and this new variation of Zachariah into that story wasn't as easy as I had thought it would be. I had completely forgotten about Clary's first meeting with Zachariah in canon for example, no recollection of that scene at all).
> 
> I obsessed over what to call Will as a Silent Brother. I went through biblical names and their meanings for ages but in the end Zachariah means memory so I stuck with it. 
> 
> Also this AU has no Herondale family so there's no Jace at all. There are two versions of it in my head, in one Izzy is the second baby Valentine doses with the angel blood in utero but Maryse isn't as easy to manage as Celine and she eventually gets pissed off at him and his 'special drinks' and tells him to fuck off, this isn't her first baby and she's fine so Izzy isn't as strong as Jace or Clary. Alternately, he doses the actual Wayland kid but something goes wrong and he dies (maybe when Valentine tries to kill his father). In either scenario, Clary picks up a lot of Jace's roles from canon (surprisingly easy to write him out without changing too many plot points). 
> 
> Also along with being a Clizzy shipper, I like the idea of Raphael/Simon (blame the show, I never shipped them in the books) so imagine an ending of City of Heavenly Fire where Simon is still a vampire and runs off with Raphael. 
> 
> I was going to add a bridge chapter to this Epilogue where I talked about how ineffective all the attempts by Charlotte or Cecily to clear Will's name or Jem and Tessa not being able to find a way to break the spell that didn't involve killing her but I think it flows without it. 
> 
> And post-Silent-Brother Asshole Will is going on my list of favourite characters. "I spent a century and a half in the Silent City, my sense of humour got a little meaner and a lot weirder and everyone expects me to be a monk so it is delightfully easy to screw with them"


	72. Epilogue: Home

The apartment still felt new. They’d only had it a few months. The war was over and Tessa had wanted to be as far from Idris as she could manage and he’d chosen China out of a sort of homesickness he didn’t realize he had until he was looking at the eastern hemisphere on a globe and realized how long it had been since he had heard the language of his birth spoken aloud.

In a century and a half, they had lived in a lot of places. They had sometimes lived together, sharing a bed and a little house. Sometimes they had lived in the same city with their own apartments and their own space. And more rarely, they had lived entirely apart. Her in one country and him in another but that never lasted more than a few months before they found their way back together.

They had gotten married four times. The first time it had been his idea and it had been a mundane ceremony in a little church in New York. They’d both still been reeling from the loss of Will and the realization that all they could do by staying in London was make it worse on Charlotte and the others. They hadn’t given up but they’d retreated and gone in search of other answers.

Years later, and three more weddings, they hadn’t found those answers.

They lived as warlocks, bouncing from place to place, following work and their whims and sometimes impossible theories that led no where. Jem used her name except in mundane places where Shadowhunter names carried no weight, there she used his. Tessa Carstairs and James Gray. Now they had just signed a lease under his Chinese name and he was a little surprised that his fingers still knew how to sign the proper characters.

When the doorbell rang, he grumbled.

“If you don’t want the neighbours thinking I’m a witch, you should answer that,” Tessa called from the kitchen. He had been pretty sure that what he was smelling was soup but he was suddenly a little less sure. He stuck his head into the kitchen on the way to the door and she was barefoot, wearing jeans and a tank top and the pot over the stove was oozing tendrils of purple smoke.

“Do I want to know?” he asked.

“I won’t tell you even if you do want to know, go answer the door before they get offended,” she said waving a metal spoon at him. The purple smoke clung too it like it was thicker than air. He nodded rather than answering her.

He went to push the door open, a polite smile firmly in place but he hesitated before he did. For weeks now, since before the war had ended there had been a twinge of intuition he wasn’t used to. There was a vague awareness he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Usually those feelings led back to Tessa but he had been with Tessa and couldn’t figure out how they fit in with her moods. It shivered through him now. Awareness but not of anything tangible. He was aware but he didn’t know of what.

Until he opened the door.

“Oh,” he said because every other word, in all the languages he knew, failed him in that moment.

Will was still and serious for a moment and his first thought was to worry about him leaving the Silent City like this but then his face split into a grin. There was scarring at his mouth but not enough for Jem to notice it until he was looking for it. His eyes were open and bright. He wore jeans and a dark wool pea coat against the winter chill and he tilted his head to the side.

“This is the fourth apartment I tried, I couldn’t find your number anywhere,” he said.

“A century and a half without a word and you open with a complaint?” Jem said.

“You should provide a forwarding address when you move, it’s only polite,” Will said fighting a smile.

“William,” Jem said in a tone somewhere between mock disapproval and genuine wonder.

“I don’t know I’ve gotten rather attached to being Zachariah, it has a certain gravitas,” Will said.

“Come here, you jackass,” Jem said and he reached out and pulled Will into a hug. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, James,” Will said.

“Welcome home,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is it, this is the end of this story. 
> 
> The one big question would be, "What happened to Nate?" and the answer is Cecily Herondale happened to Nathaniel Gray (really he should be thankful he died in canon before he ever met her and betrayed her in anyway) but I leave it up to you whether he was brought before the Clave and tried as a Downworlder or whether Cecily just beat the hell out of him because he was the one she blamed for what happened to Will. 
> 
> Also because I am me, I imagine this final scene leading to a happy OT3 kind of future but you can imagine Will fitting into their unusual little life however you want. Will's side of the binding spell doesn't leave Will with as much access to Tessa's powers as Jem has but it does tie his life into hers so they're all stuck with immortality for better or worse. 
> 
> Other random loose ends: 
> 
> Jem and Tessa could have had children but never did. As much as he's the type to love being a dad, given her childhood, she's far far more wary of the possibilities of parenthood than canon-Tessa is and there's a lot of magic running around there and since she can't predict how it might affect a child (would they be immortal too, would they not be?) she's not inclined to try it. But if you like imagining baby scenarios, you can certainly imagine them in this world. 
> 
> Cecily was a bigger pain in the ass for the Clave than she was in canon. I like to imagine Charlotte somehow passing her and Gabriel the London Institute once she becomes Consul (which still happens but for different reasons, a missing leg isn't going to make Charlotte retire). She also pulled a lot of the same kind of "Brother Zachariah is required" shit that Will pulls with Jem in canon so she sees her brother far more often than is quite ... normal. She always felt like her inability to find the legal loophole to get around Will's "incarceration" was a personal failing. 
> 
> Also Tessa and Jem are definitely responsible for the Silent City cats, Izzy is wrong about them getting in during the explosion, they got in because Tessa and Jem snuck down and let them in so she could get in and out without being noticed. Tessa sometimes carried notes rolled into her collar and often just hung out in Will's room and rode around on his shoulder so he didn't have to be alone. No one knew because as long as she wasn't thinking too hard, the cat brain wouldn't register to the Silent Brothers. 
> 
> Magnus and Tessa and Jem remain friends throughout the years (Magnus is the one who told Will where to find them even if he got the apartment number wrong). 
> 
> I am super proud of this story. So thank you so much for reading through to the end. I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
